Eret III
by Foxy'sGirl
Summary: Eret III isn't quite his father's son. Or is he? Sequel to Fester. Rated for Language.
1. Introductions

Guys, I've been waiting forever for this. I'm so excited about this.

But. But, I need to point something out. This is the sequel to Fester. My tragic story Fester. So if you haven't read Fester, this won't make any sense.

**Introductions**

This is Berk. Normally it's an idyllic wet rock surrounded by sweeping frigid beaches and covered with generally soggy pine forests, but right now, it's on fire.

I guess it's sort of to be expected, with four hundred Vikings cleaning up after four thousand dragons, but that doesn't make the towering flames any less thrilling. My _noble_ steed doesn't agree, and Bang is so bravely flinching his tidal class belly away from the rising flames even as I'm trying to get a good look.

We're Vikings, aggressive by nature and prone to taking idioms about fighting fire with fire to a dangerously literal extent. From the edge of the blaze furthest from my mother's terrifyingly long-reaching gaze, I can see a half dozen Monstrous Nightmares flapping and blasting flames inwards, aided by two looming and massive Typhoomerangs.

The chief zooms through on his nearly invisible night fury, blasting a burning tree to burning dust and I roll my eyes, ducking alongside the fire low enough to avoid detection. As _showy_ as fire and _of course_ plasma is, I've got a better idea.

A Thunderdrum's concussive blast can kill a man at close range, or as Bang has demonstrated _many_ times, blow off a few shutters and give everyone in the vicinity one Hel of a headache. If he aims it at the fire, I don't see why it wouldn't be Midgard's largest puff on a giant candle.

I know, I know. Air feeds fire. I'm a blacksmith, I don't need reminding before my arm hair grows back. I've pumped the baffle a few thousand times this _week_. But we won't be giving the fire air, not really anyway. If Bang is really angry, as angry as his uneven wingbeats are suggesting, then he's going to unleash all that pent up rage in a blast so big that it takes the air _away_.

In theory.

I pull back from the fire a bit and steel myself, because it's now or never and even Arvid can only keep Mom stalled for so long until she's out here with a pent up decade of shield-maiden rage, dragging me home by my ear. This is it, this has to be the day when one of my ideas works. The first time.

And people will start listening to me. And I might get a date.

And everyone will stop going conspicuously silent when I enter the room in my perpetually bigger than me brother's shadow.

Today is the day.

No turning back.

I tighten my grip on the wide leather strap around Bang's head and nudge him with my heels. He snorts, ornery as always, and I tell him again, gritting my teeth and blinking ash out of whining, stinging eyes.

We soar up above the highest flames, arcing halfway back to the ground in the boiling air and I press myself flat against that wide Thunderdrum back, waiting for the gust. It comes, a ripple of scales and muscles and fins beneath me, and I don't even have time to appreciate the near perfect circle of bare, charred dirt that it leaves behind before realizing that I forgot the _sound_.

My ears ring like a bronze bell and I slip, clutching the sooty side of my face just long enough to lose my grip entirely and tumble over Bang's head, a hard-falling thirty feet onto the still sizzling circle of scorched earth.

Even without the overwhelming smell of my burning hair, it's not exactly where I'd build a summer cabin.

I'm alive, at least. For now.

I scramble to my feet, brushing hot coals off of adrenaline numb hands and whistling for Bang. I can still see him orbiting above the flames, panicky and flailing.

That's the things about Thunderdrums. They're the most superior dragon on the island. The small, wet rock adrift in thousands of times more ocean. But they aren't the dragon of choice if you're someone who spends a significant amount of time dive-bombing into forest fires.

Still growing forest fires.

"Odin's saggy left tit," I flinch away from a shower of sparks and pat out an eager blaze uncomfortably high on my thigh. The fire is a _wall_ around me, curling and creeping back into the shrinking circle of safety, drowning out Bang's panic with a crackle and a roar. "Ok, ok, ok. Think!" My boot catches on fire and I kick it off in a panic, hopping on one foot and tugging at my singed hair.

Of course I have a lot of options. Behind flame-door number one, there's a heaping pile of _burning_ _alive_. Door two is a real kicker, a brand new, fire-resistant dragon in Valhalla because I _burned alive_.

Door number three is just a slightly smaller dose of burning alive, accompanied by lots of yelling and screaming.

I'm four choice syllables into option three when the most hideous Valkyrie I've ever seen swoops down and digs claws into my shoulders, dragging me up into the inferno and catching my other boot on fire, the pain tethering me strictly to Midgard. I kick it off and hold my bare feet away from the flames, coughing miserably when it drops me a safe distance away from the flames.

I keep coughing until I puke and my hands start to hurt like I grabbed a red hot blade and held on for dear life. My mysterious savior _snuffles_ at my back, murmuring almost familiar and I roll onto my seat to get a better look.

It's the chief's Night Fury and he licks my face with a fishy tongue before narrowing his eyes and stalking around me in a semi-circle to stand between me and fire that, thank Odin, doesn't seem to be spreading anymore. I don't feel particularly lucky with the Night Fury glaring me down.

He smacks me on the back of the head with his tail and warbles insistently, coming too close for comfort and nudging my hand. My palm screams at the contact, obviously more burned than I'd realized earlier and I wince. The dragon bumps his head against my back, herding me away from the fire.

"Alright!" I stumble forward and glare back over my shoulder. Bang isn't appearing out of the gloom, meaning that he went home to _tattle_. I hope he got there ok. I hope that Mom doesn't know what the Hel he's talking about.

The Night Fury trills and headbutts me in the ass. I step on a sharp rock, wincing and glaring at the bottom of my bare, burnt and now bleeding foot. He chirps and sniffs at the blood, sliding into another strange lecture, flapping his frills indignantly against his neck.

He's _lecturing _me. As if I don't get that enough from everyone else.

"Hey!" I push his head away and put my foot down. Literally _and_ figuratively. "Don't dragon-lecture me. Thanks for saving me from the fire, but I can handle it from here. I don't have any fish for you—ouch!" He thwacks me on the top of the head with a strange front paw. "Don't hit me—and back to the lecturing. Seriously dragon, stop it." He tries to do it again and I deflect the arm with my elbow.

He growls and rocks back onto his haunches like a bizarre person, slapping down with both arms. I duck out from underneath the blows and he drops back onto all fours, shoving his nose in my hair and snuffling before I can stop him.

"What are you _doing_? Stop—ouch—Gods!" I try to make out the blisters blooming on my palms, elbowing the dragon's neck and escaping his damn Nadder-nose. "Are you tracking me? What's your _aim_ here—"

"Eret?" Someone is silhouetted against the waning fire, running towards us. It's not my mom, thank the gods, and as an added bonus, the dragon backs off, sitting on his heels and mewling confused. "Are you ok?"

It's the chief, and I'm more than a bit taken aback by how _scared_ he looks. I've never seen the chief look scared before, not that I've seen very much of the chief, but it's unsettling. Maybe the fire is out of control somewhere else, even if it's backing off here.

"I'm—"

"I saw you fall, but Toothless was, of course, nowhere to be found." The dragon warbles and winds around the chief's back, staring at me with wide, harmless green eyes. He sniffs my bloody foot and nudges his rider's knee. The chief starts patting my shoulders and sides, grabbing my wrists and wincing at the state of my hands before yanking me into a nearly oppressively tight hug. "But he got you. I'm so glad you're alright."

"Uh, chief?" I cough and sputter because the pressure isn't so great for my charred lungs.

"Right! Smoke, tight hugs, not a great combination—"

"—great combination—"

The last words come out in unison but the chief doesn't seem to notice, freeing a waterskin from his dragon's saddle and holding it towards me. I fumble it open and chug the contents, wincing and near desperate, and by the time I'm handing it back, the chief is ready with a small clay jar of what I recognize as Gobber's famously smelly burn ointment.

"I know it doesn't smell great, but…" he takes my hand and swipes the grease across it, instantly soothing a good part of the pain.

"It's the best," I finish the sentence and he grins at me, disconcertingly familiar through the smears of soot across his face. When have I seen the chief smile? He's always so…chiefly.

"The best." He pulls a strip of linen out of the hand holding the jar and rips it in half, wrapping it around my palm and tying it in a neat knot. "It should calm down the blisters at least." He does the same with my other hand and mutters to his Night Fury over his shoulder. "How are your feet? I'd give you my shoes but…" he scuffs that famous metal foot on the dirt and I snort, swallowing a raw throated cough.

"Better barefoot than lopsided."

"Couldn't have said it better myself," he smiles strangely again before his face falls back chiefly stern. "What were you doing out here anyway?"

"Uh Bang, my dragon—"

"I know who your dragon is."

"I was thinking he could put out some of the fire with a concussive blast. And he did, that's why I wasn't instantly char-broiled—"

"Huh," he cocks his head, curious and drawing a circle in the ash with his metal leg, fanning a few vaguely winged shapes around it. "That one didn't work out so well, no offense…"

"None taken," I shrug and pick a particularly large chunk of soot out of my singed hair.

"But what if I interspaced Thunderdrums between the Typhoomerangs instead of Nightmares? It might put the fire out without making the whole island hotter than Volundr's asshole—" I laugh and he stops short, looking up from the plan embarrassed in a way chiefs shouldn't be.

"I wasn't going to mention the heat, but since you brought it up…" I fan myself with a freshly bandaged hand, glancing up at the nearby flames.

"Right, I forgot that your feet must be freezing."

"Frigid," I step up to the drawing and he laughs, watching me drag a still bleeding foot around part of the circle. "Also, I was thinking it'd protect the halls better if we thinned out this section of forest. It's too easy for the fire to jump."

"It's too close packed," the chief shakes his head. "You're right but I can't get Gronckles in there and if I clear cut it with a Timberjack, I'd risk taking out the halls I'm trying to protect."

"You don't—ah, crap," I reach for my axe, but of course I left it at home earlier, "you don't need dragons. A couple of axes could do it in a few days."

"The only problem with that is getting Vikings excited about chopping something that doesn't bleed to add onto wood piles that are already over capacity."

"I'll do it," because this conversation is productive and he's listening and I haven't managed to silence him with my mysteriously offensive presence. "I'm going to need something to do while I'm grounded."

"Grounded?"

"I flew into a forest fire after being expressly told to stay inside. And that's not even getting into the fact that I blackmailed my brother into covering for me. I'll be lucky to see the clouds again this _season_." I bury my face in my hands and groan. The longer that I'm here, the longer that mom has to decipher Bang's panic.

Gods, he must be terrified. I've got to get home.

"Maybe I'll come break you out sometime." I freeze at the bizarre offer and his metal foot scrapes harshly against the sharp rock that cut me. "If I need your help with another fire or…"

"I wouldn't, unless you _want_ my mom to mount your head on a spear." His smile is disconcerting, like he somehow doesn't remember that my mom was apparently even scarier when she was younger. "Seriously though, let me thin out those trees. I can use the wood."

"I won't stop you," and he's sad for a moment. "Just come tell me when you're done and I'll get you some silver for it."

"Really? Thanks," I raise my hand in an awkward half wave, flinching when the bandage digs into the edge of a particularly enthusiastic blister. "And uh, thanks for this," the dragon steps forward to sniff me again, "and thank you, bud. Really."

"Do you need a ride home?" The chief asks, swinging into his saddle and leaning forward to free up a foot of seat behind him. "Your feet look a little worse for the wear."

"Alright," I look both ways before climbing on, suddenly sure that Rolf or Arvid or Dad is going to see and ask or judge or be mad. Their comments about the chief make less sense than ever, and I get settled on the narrow dragon's spine, gingerly setting my hands on his shoulders. "Don't show off too much, I'm used to a sturdier seat."

The dragon snorts, and his tail smacks me in the back of the head, again.

I'd flick him if I could move my fingers.

"And the burns can't be helping." He calls me out before urging the dragon into the air, practiced and smooth, arcing around the rapidly diminishing fire. Of course Mom is out in front of my house, halfway onto Stormfly when we land.

Bang nearly knocks me over as I get off of the Night Fury, sniffing my bandaged hands and pressing his face into my stomach. I hug him back and tell him I'm alright and he wraps his long, cool tail around my ankles.

Mom starts yelling and I flinch, but it's miraculously not aimed at me.

"This is your influence!" She roars, stomping up beside the night fury and jabbing her finger into the chief's chest as he dismounts. "You're the only one dumb enough—"

"He doesn't have any influence!" I interject and Mom looks at the chief, oddly smug, before turning on me. Her eyes catch on my bandaged hands before sticking on my bare, bloody feet.

"Where are your shoes?"

"Probably somewhere with the rest of the ash…"

"Do you have any idea how scared Bang was?" Mom points over her shoulder at the front door, blown clean off of its hinges and laying in the remnants of the dining room table.

"I'll fix that."

"You are grounded for the rest of fire season—"

"Mom!"

"At least," she walks up and starts patting me down like the chief had, checking the knots on my bandaged hands and resting a relieved palm on my cheek for a second until she's furious again and I'm wincing from the punishment that I haven't even heard about yet. "And you definitely can't have Bang sleep with you tonight. Someone has to guard the doorway."

"You're going to make Bang sleep in the barn with the other dragons?" I sputter, holding his broad head close to my side. "Look at his _face_—"

"Oh, he doesn't have to sleep outside," she shakes her head and points to the barn. "You do."

"What?"

"Like you said, look at his face," she pats his head, and I can tell she's grateful beneath the fury. "He looks pretty happy about having your bed to himself."

"But look at my face," I try to wipe some of the soot away, but he's nonplussed.

"Not doing much for me."

"I think it's alright," the chief calls out and I'm startled because what kind of psycho would willingly stay through one of my mom's famous reamings.

Maybe Dad's right and the chief really is a nutjob.

"You, barn," Mom points at me before turning to the chief with a scathing glare normally reserved for well…me, in situations like this, when I'm still talking and she's done yelling. "Chief, get out of here. And next time send him _home_."


	2. Family Ties

**Family Ties**

I wake up in the morning considerably more cramped than the night before, with Bang tucked tightly between my chest and Arvid's Nightmare, Wingspark, with Stormfly's big head resting on my hip. The air in the barn is unreasonably warm and I gingerly place my burned hands against Bang's perpetually cool stomach. They're better this morning, definitely, but I _am_ going to face the always fun gauntlet of explaining to Gobber that I can't work today.

He'll have me sorting repairs into new piles for half the morning before letting me go home.

I sit up before Stormfly can tuck me even deeper into the cage under her wings to find a clay pitcher of water and a cup sitting at the base of the straw, just inside the wide barn doors. Skullcrusher grunts from his roost on the other side of the sparking, snoring Nightmare and I spring to my feet with a startled yelp. Dad is still here and my foot is bleeding again, and Mom is going to kill me for getting blood on the floor, but I'm never awake before Dad leaves.

He's a fisherman, he inherited half of my mom's family's boats when he married my mom but he grew the fleet and now it's the second biggest on the island. Of course, the chief still owns more boats, even if he doesn't use them. Dad says it's because he's greedy, but I'd guess it's an inheritance thing.

The chief didn't seem _greedy_ last night.

But I'm not going to bring up last night, because the longer I go without anyone mentioning it, the further I am from grounding. And I don't want to explain everything to Dad anyway, he's the one with the 'warily disappointed' face that makes me feel Terror tall.

I pick my way across brief stretch of grass, flinching as bang starts up snoring again and rattles the barn door on its hinges. At least that door still has hinges, the house's front door is leaning haphazardly against the house and I slip through the doorway, waiting on the mat for my foot's bleeding to subside. Mom comes down the hallway and smiles surprised before giving me a stern look.

"Did you drink that water? You're probably all dried out from yesterday."

"Uh no, I saw that Skullcrusher was still here—"

"And ran inside," she slips back into that smile and walks over to the hearth, turning what smells like a fresh loaf of bread. "Dad's not going out today, the water around the island got ashy enough to scare off the fish, at least for a couple of days. You can go get some more sleep before breakfast, if you want."

"No," I shake my head" you can't make me go back to the barn. Never, I'll hunger strike"

"Arvid will love that, should I go tell him the can have your breakfast?" My mom is secretly witty. It doesn't come out much and even Arvid doesn't believe me when I say she's hilarious and Dad only agrees sometimes. I think it's sort of our thing, she's smart with Rolf and fierce with Ingrid, tough on Arvid and _funny_ with me.

I'm lucky.

"Can I start my hunger strike after breakfast?"

She shakes her head, and even though I know she's only five years younger than dad, it seems like more.

And even though my growth spurt isn't quite here yet, I really don't have too much to complain about. Best dragon, best mom, best house furthest from the village with the best view. And didn't die last night.

"I meant in your bed," Mom shrugs towards my loft. "I'm assuming you didn't sleep so well last night."

"Arvid needs to cuddle his dragon more, she's deprived." I look at the bottom of my foot and Mom comes to do the same, sighing at the shallow slice.

"Let me get this cleaned up, I should have done it last night but…"

"But you were too busy with the yelling," I laugh and she shakes her head.

"I'm sorry. I never wanted to be so yell-y," she walks over to the hearth and wets a rag with clean water before sitting down at the table. "Come over here."

"I'll get blood on the floor."

"I don't care, let me get your foot clean," she pats the chair next to her and I hop over on my better foot, the one that's _only _burned and scraped, stumbling just in time to fall into the chair.

"You don't have to mommy me so much, it's fine." I laugh as she jerks my foot into her lap, almost dragging me off of my chair.

"I'm your mom, it's my job." She carefully wipes grime away from the wound. "And you've got to take good care of your feet."

"They're sort of expendable, aren't they?" I joke to keep from wincing as she wipes directly down the gash. "Look at Gobber."

And the chief. I keep coming back to him in a way I can't quite explain.

"Not funny," she sets my foot on her chair and stands to grab a roll of bandages. She always says that she only keeps them around for me and it's probably true. All my siblings are graceful in a way that's hard for me, but it's probably just the growth spurt hitting feet first.

Mom sits back down and carefully wraps up my foot, two layers thick so that I don't bleed through, and pulls my other foot onto her lap to check it for wounds. She cleans it quickly with the rag and sets it on the floor.

"Am I good to walk now?"

"If it feels alright," she frowns, because she knows me well enough to know that I wouldn't tell her anyway. "And I think I have an old pair of Rolf's boots that should fit you. I'll look after everyone's awake."

"Take your time, Gobber is never going to let me work without shoes." I show her my hands, last night's bandages surprisingly dingy compared to the fresh, white wrapping around my foot. "And I'm burned enough for the moment."

"You're still going to work today." She grabs one of my hands and frowns.

"I can't hold anything."

"You don't get out of work for being an idiot. And let me re-wrap your hands, those bandages are disgusting."

I don't get a chance to say anything before she's tugging at the knots and frowning. "Why is he _still_ doing it like this?"

"What?"

"Oh. Nothing. I just—Never tie bandage knots like this. You can't cut them off without wiggling the knife underneath."

"How are you supposed to get them off?" I hold my other palm in front of my face and look at the knot for a moment. "Try pulling on the loose end of the bandage."

"What?" She leans over my hand, spreading it flat against her knee.

"Just tug on the end of the bandage that's sticking out there," I try to do it myself and wince when my fingers overtax the fragile, crackled skin of my palm.

"Eret, that's just going to tighten it," she shakes her head, giving the linen an experimental tug. The knot comes easily undone, revealing untarnished white underneath the first darkened layer. "Oh."

"That's—I'm going to have to ask him how to tie that," I poke at the intact knot try to follow the end back through with my eyes.

"I'm sure Gobber knows," she snaps at me, suddenly frigid, and for once I have absolutely no idea what I did wrong. "You can ask him later."

"Ouch, do you have to do that so forcefully?" I tug my hand away from her with a frown, hissing as she swipes the sore skin with ointment.

"Stop being such a smart ass, Eret. It's too early for that."

"How was I being a smart ass?"

She glances up at me, "you were born a smart ass."

"Better than a dumb ass," I hiss as she tugs a bandage neatly tight around my palm.

"Not always," she sighs and bandages my other hand in silence, scooting away with a purposeful sniff. "I think that the bread is burning. Do you mind pulling it out? I'm going to go see if your dad is awake."

"Right," I wave my hands at her, "built in oven mitts."

"So help me Odin if you burn yourself again."

"What's Odin going to do about it?"

"Hold me back," she rolls her eyes at me, one last small smile slipping through her annoyance as she turns and heads back down the hall.

I don't burn myself, and I set the bread down on the heart as quietly as I can before sneaking down the hall, tucking close to the wall and peering through my parents' cracked bedroom door. Arvid and I started doing this when we were little, not in a creepy way, although now I sort of wonder how we never saw anything we shouldn't have. Arvid stopped a couple of years ago, making up some excuse about being able to get his own girls but I haven't let go of it yet.

It's nothing obscene or particularly interesting, I guess, just Mom standing by the side of the bed with her hand on Dad's shoulder. They're talking in hushed tones and she kisses the top of his head. He pulls her into a hug and says something that makes her smile, almost.

My parents have friends over occasionally. Not that often, they aren't the most popular couple in the village and I don't exactly know why, but Arvid dating everyone's teenage daughter in the past couple of years probably hasn't helped. But no one is happy like my mom and dad, their friends are always complaining, always joking about their marriages. I can't imagine anyone else having a quiet moment like this, not talking, just hugging. Mom is never this still and Dad is always talking to one of us kids, if he can, but when they're alone it's _peaceful_. Stable.

Sure Ruffnut and Fishlegs love each other, but they're so loud about it. There's a couple that Arvid and I learned not to spy on. And young. Snotlout and his wife hate each other, political thing, and I don't think I've met the woman more than a handful of times. Tuffnut and Finna get along, but not in any way anyone else understands. They're always laughing over cryptic jokes that no one else gets and I doubt they're quiet in private.

This is something magical. Like baby dragons migrating for the first time, like the snow finally melting away in the spring, like—

"What did you do this time, little brother?" Arvid whispers over my shoulder and I jolt, elbow flying back towards him. He dodges neatly and waves me back to the kitchen, pinching a corner off of the hot bread and popping it into his mouth. "Nice mittens."

"What are you doing out here?" I look at his closed bedroom door and he grins.

"Mom was so busy shrieking at you last night that I snuck out to see Gangrene."

"And you're just sneaking in now?"

"Jealous?" He doesn't wait for an answer, glancing at my hands again. "Any luck with the fire? Is Bang as beaten up as you are?"

"Bang is fine, thank you very much. And I'll have you know that the chief liked my idea for putting out the fire."

"Oh, the chief liked your idea? I told you it was stupid."

I try and punch him in the arm and he catches my fist, twisting it around behind my back, but drops it instantly when I stiffen with actual pain. "What happened to your hands?"

"I got a little up close and personal with the fire. No big deal, I'm just…thorough with my research."

"So that's what Mom was screaming about last night. She woke up the whole island." Arvid laughs, "she really made you sleep in the barn?"

"You heard that part, huh?" I glare at him, "you need to cuddle Wingspark more, man. She's desperate, she and Stormfly played tug of war with me all night."

"So you finally got some action then—"

"Hey!"

"—good for you. They're both quite good looking if you're into scales—"

"What are you two fighting about?" Ingrid slumps into the kitchen, wearing half her armor with her long blonde hair undone. She ruffles my hair and pinches off another corner of the bread, reaching for Arvid's head and pinching his arm when he dodges her affection. "And who's into scales?"

"Eret, he had Wing and Stormfly fighting over him last night."

"Arvid wasn't even here, he was with Gangrene last night." I pause when they both laugh at me, "never mind. That was supposed to be an insult but—"

"What happened to your feet?" Ingrid frowns at me, crossing her arms and cocking her hip like Mom in a mood. "And your hands?"

"Oh, you didn't hear Mom yelling at me last night? Apparently it woke up the whole island."

"I left as soon as she started yelling, like a sane person," she scoffs and starts combing her fingers through her hair, braiding it in a loose weave over her shoulder. "Spitleaf brought Smoke and Smog over and we spent the night tracking down some _pirates_."

"Am I the only one who sticks around when mom starts yelling?"

They don't answer and I roll my eyes. "Anyway, at least you can't cram your half of that Zippleback into the barn. There was barely room enough for me as is."

"Mom actually made you sleep in the barn?" She laughs, but it's serious, it doesn't quite unfurl the tired furrow in her brow. She really does look like Mom most of the time, but right now it's all Dad. "She's so _hard_ on you."

"Like I said, Eret was getting some _tail_," Arvid drags me into a headlock and I shove him off, elbowing him in the ribs. "Mom's worried about him, I guess. I have all of the girls on the island except Spitleaf, who's yours—"

She shoves him, "Stop. She's not my—You leave this house and she's my _friend_, alright?" But her cheeks are red and it's not entirely convincing. She wants to brag about it and I wish that she could. I nudge Arvid in the side hard enough that he coughs, and of course Mom chooses that moment to reappear.

"Really Eret? No roughhousing in the kitchen." She waves a stern finger at me and Ingrid risks glaring at her. We all freeze when Mom doesn't seem to notice.

"What's going on?" Ingrid asks slowly, sitting down at the table and tugging her kransen down over her forehead.

"What do you mean?" Mom shrugs and starts cutting the bread with Dad's dagger, looking pointedly at a canvas bag of yak jerky until Arvid catches on and sets it on the table. "Nothing is going on."

"What do you mean nothing is going on?" Arvid laughs, "you should be bragging, Mom, what with the way you tore into the chief last night—"

"You aren't the stealthy one, Arvid. Sneak out again and I'll start talking to Snotlout about a contract with Smite."

"Oooh, lucky you," I chime in, "I know you like them tall, dark, and hairy—"

"Eret!" Mom snaps, holding her hand against her head, knife rattling on the table where she slammed it. "Can you just stop with the _snarkiness_ today? I'm not in the mood."

"Thor almighty Mom, don't be a dick to Eret just because the chief came around—"

I kick Ingrid under the table before she can finish that sentence, forgetting to flinch at the stabbing pain in the sole of my foot. No one talks to Mom like that. "N—sorry, Mom. I didn't get much sleep, I—"

"Yeah, you were out with Spitleaf again. Seriously, you two, Eret is the sneaky one." Mom sits down in her normal seat at the table, leaving Rolf's empty seat like he's going to stumble out of his room at any moment, bringing his book to breakfast. The house still feels bigger even though he got married and elected to move into the Ingerman lodge with his bride two months ago.

That's probably why Mom is upset. Rolf hasn't been visiting as much as he promised he would. "What am I doing? You three can cut your own bread."

"Sure we can," I slide the loaf and knife in front of me and set about gingerly cutting slices. Mom groans into the table, but no one else seems to hear it.


	3. Second Impressions

**This chapter makes me squeal like a small child. I love it so much. **

00000

It's a busy day at the forge with plenty of half-melted and warped weapons to sort. I should be excited, I don't get to work with weapons all that much and the fire did a number on the village's armory, but I'd rather be on saddle duty or nail duty or _anything_ but this. Gobber welcomed me with a slap upside the head that I probably deserved, and got me making piles. So many piles.

By mid-afternoon my hands are feeling better, or the part of my mind that cares is so bored and numb that I don't notice the pain anymore, and I start reshaping hammers. They aren't exactly precise instruments, so I'm not worried about my clumsy fixes. Gobber always checks my final balance anyway, even though there's nothing much either of us can do about an amorphous, battle-hardened lump of iron.

Someone knocks on the open front counter and I turn to see Fuse Thorston, clutching a crumpled pile of drawings and smelling like black powder. I used to be afraid of her. She's a year older than me, Arvid's age, and he pulled one of her strawberry blonde pigtails when they were seven. She retaliated with a stink bomb through our front window, and I hid from her until I was ten.

"Hey Fuse, what do you need?" I set down my half-finished project and walk over to look at her drawings. Her commissions are always fun, different from everything else. She does explosives work for the chief, half because she's talented and half to keep her from hurling stink bombs through random victim's windows.

But reasoning aside, it's always interesting and she usually overpays.

"What happened to your hands? You look like me," she holds up her left hand with three bandaged fingers.

"Eh, forest fire. You might have seen it," I joke, looking out at the bald patch of charcoal on the hill behind the village.

"I was over on Eel Island," she shrugs. My joke falls entirely flat and I shake my head, gesturing towards her drawings.

"What do you need?" I pull the parchment towards me and instead of the normal egg-shaped or spherical container with some sort of latch, it's a long fin shaped piece of metal, curving in on both edges. "What's this for?" 

"Aim, I hope." She cocks her head, rechecking the design. "I've got to vent another volcano, but this time the wall is a little more delicate."

"Aiming an explosion?" I pick up the drawing and look at my newly made pile of weapons to be scrapped. "Sounds sort of impossible, but I can make the part in…three days? Maybe?"

"I'll come back in four," she places a small stack of silver on the counter. "Is that enough for the first half of it?"

I pluck two ingots off of the pile and hand them back to her.

"You don't have to give me all the money you have, you know."

"Eh," she puts a coin back down and slides it towards me directly. A tip. "If I keep it, I just end up feeding it to Hotgut to see if I can make anything exciting." She shrugs and gestures to the purple tinged Gronckle waiting patiently in the square behind her. "Anyway, I've got to go. See you in four days."

"See you then," I wave her off and walk towards the small back room that Gobber lets me use, pinning the drawing of the part to the back of the door so that it'll flatten before I have to work from it.

I'm winding my way back around the scrap pile when tinkling laughter steals my attention. Aurelia Haddock is crossing the square, arm looped through a friend's that I barely notice. Aurelia does that, she takes all of the attention in a room with that long red-brown hair and those sparkling green eyes. Gods, she's…she's coming over here.

Oh wow, she's looking at me, and she's walking towards the forge window. I trip over a warped sword and nearly take out the pile on the way to the counter and she laughs, whispering to her friend. The other girl disappears or something, because then she's alone there, smiling at me, and my palms sting with blooming sweat.

"Can I help you?" I'm not quite sure what to do with my hands. It seems right to lean against the counter, but my bandages feel like they've caught on fire and—oh, great, my face is bright red.

"I was wondering, Erik—"

"Uh, it's Eret," I correct her and she looks at me uncomprehending. "Eret, my dad is Eret…son of Eret. But I guess I'm a son of an Eret too, so I'm Eret son of Eret son of—Never mind. Eret III. But you can call me Eret."

"Right," she looks at me strangely and takes a small silver ring off of her delicate third finger. "I was wondering if you could fix this, I dented it," she shows him an almost imperceptibly small gouge in the band.

"That little thing? You want _that_ fixed—" I stop myself, because this seems a whole lot like an _excuse_ all of a sudden. An excuse like when Arvid's saddle breaks right in front of his conquest of the week's house and he _has_ to knock on the door to ask for…a date? I'm not quite sure how that works, but it almost always does. "Yeah, I can fix that."

"Thanks, Erik." Her smile is so pretty that it takes me a minute to notice her mistake.

"Eret."

"Huh?" And when she cocks her head, her hair falls in her eyes and I want to reach out and make a fool out of myself. I pick up a cloth and start polishing the ring, working on the deformity especially.

"You can call me Erik," I try for a winning smile, and for someone making ridiculous excuses to come to the forge, she's nonplussed. "It's like a nickname."

"It's not a nickname if it's your actual name."

"Hey Honey!" The chief slides in out of nowhere, sooty from fire clean up and wedging himself between his daughter and the counter. She flinches away from him, dodging an ashy hug.

"Hey Dad, looks like washday is coming early this week."

"What are you two uh, talking about?" He gestures between us, and something about his smile is forced. It's nothing like the almost recognizable grin the night before, but no less familiar somehow.

It's almost enough to pull my eyes away from his daughter.

"Nothing dad, I'll see you at home," she exits easily, thankfully ignoring me as my gaze slips habitually down to her—

"Eret?" The chief is still at the counter, staring at me like I've done something tremendously worrying. Aurelia called him 'dad' and right now he looks like one. "What were you guys talking about?"

"She wanted me to polish the dent out of this ring," I hold the newly smooth band out towards him and he nods, looking behind me like he's searching for something.

"And that's it?"

"Is the interrogation really necessary?" I laugh, putting the ring back into my cloth and continuing to polish.

"Not this one. How are you feeling today?" And he seems so genuinely concerned that the conversation at breakfast ceases to make sense. Arvid supplied most of it, about how the chief liked my idea and that inherently means it's shitty, and Mom looked at no one in particular, tapping her foot senselessly under the table.

"My pride is a little wounded," I laugh, gesturing towards my new, slightly _loose_ boots. "My brother's from when he was _fourteen_."

The chief's lip quirks, profoundly sad.

And Mom says no one cares about my growth spurt but me. Of course, it doesn't make any sense for him to care, but I'll take the sympathy where I can get it.

"Your father was a bit small at your age. Smaller than you."

I quirk an eyebrow at _that_ tidbit of information.

"How do you know? He wasn't on Berk back then."

He frowns and it's so familiar again. Maybe he looks more like Snotlout than I gave him credit for.

"Hearsay." He drums his hands on the counter for a moment, looking at me like he's expecting me to say something.

"Do you need something?"

"No, I just…Did your mother really make you sleep in the barn?" He smiles again, uneasy and glancing behind me. I look around the forge and don't see anything out of the ordinary.

"It wasn't so bad. Lots of straw, lots of dragons, nice and warm," it feels weird telling him this, why would he want to know? Something is comfortable, and it worries me. The few minutes of pleasant chatting before Spitleaf Ingerman is giving me a wedgie and Ingrid is yelling through her laughter. "And she did let Bang sleep inside too, that was brutal."

"That's cold," he snickers to himself and leans closer, silvery hair looking a bit warmer in the glow of the forge. He looks younger, and it can't be Snotlout I'm seeing in his face. The resemblance is closer than a family friend, and I try and remember if he and mom are related somehow. It seems like half of Berk is clinging to one big old family tree, maybe he's my distant uncle or something. Really distant, because my grandma would have said something, she's not like Dad, she was a true, proud Berkian. "I'm surprised she didn't bring him breakfast in bed and let you know out of the window."

"Ugh, it was worse than that!" I complain around a stifled grin, bandaged hand dramatically against my forehead. "She was practically shouting in my ear last night _'here's your glass of water before bed, Bang-y, concuss if you need anything!'_." My hip falls into that familiar place and I plant my hand on it, cuing off of the chief's widening smile. "I'm pretty sure he got the whole spiel, _'Dad and I will leave the door open if you need anything, we love you'_."

The chief's face falls and he stands up away from the counter, older in the sunlight. He runs his hand back through his hair and I almost just come out and ask if he _is_ my distant relative, because something about the way he looks is strange and alarming and I _know_ I've seen it before.

"That's…"

"Not as dead on as I thought? I'm a little rusty. The impression got so good during that blizzard last winter that it went from funny to creepy and I had to put it away for a while." My hand is still working, rhythmically polishing that shallow groove in the ring.

"I'd say it's pretty dead on," the chief shakes his head like he's trying to clear it and I frown.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, I just—I should probably get going before Gobber gets back…and you—you should probably get to work before Gobber gets back." He points at the piles of weapons behind me with an animated arm and I shrug. He flinches and sighs, and I look around to make sure that nothing is on fire.

"You don't look so good, chief."

"Lots of smoke in the uh…lungs. Chest." He coughs, and it doesn't sound _real_, but I would swear on the Book of Dragons that I've heard it before somewhere.

"Take my mom's advice and drink some water."

"Will do," he nods, and this feels strange again. I don't know him, but he's not silent and he's almost familiar. Maybe those speeches left a bigger impression on my snoring self than I'd guessed. "Oh, Aurelia's ring?" He holds his hand out towards me and I freeze.

"I was _thinking_ maybe I could bring it to her…after I get off of work, you know—"

"I'll bring it to her." He's the chief again, firm and solid, and I hand off the ring reluctantly. Just when I was starting to think I had Aurelia's father's approval. "It's just easier. You get it. It—yeah."

"Alright chief," I set the cloth down and take a small backwards step towards the anvil where that half-forgotten hammer is still half finished.

"If you wanted, you could call me Hiccup."

"Chief Hiccup, maybe." I laugh to cover up the strange feeling welling in my chest. "Hiccup just feels too informal, I hardly know you."

"I hope to change that."

00000

I slump home after work, crashing through the front door with a stretch and a groan. The house is quiet and I look for Mom, but her boots are missing from the floor by the door.

"You're home early," Dad sets a piece of parchment down with a rattle and I jump.

"Didn't see you there," I laugh and blink so my eyes adjust to the half-darkness, strolling over to sit on the edge of the hearth. Normally, that chair is mine, but it fits Dad better. Just another case of a Viking sized house reminding me that I'm not quite there yet. "Did you have a nice day off?"

"Nice enough," he shrugs, heavy feet thunking onto the bear skin rug. "Trying to get this map sorted out but something looks wrong."

"Want me to have a look?" I stand and walk over to him, accepting the sheet of parchment and bringing it up to my face. "What part of it?"

"Oh, the channel near Eel Island, something about that current line is funny. But I'm not the most talented map-maker in the family," he praises and I peek back over the map at him, raising an eyebrow.

"Why aren't you mad at me?"

"Should I be mad at you?" He laughs, "Isn't your mother mad enough for the both of us?"

"No, I'm glad you're not mad, I was just wondering if you'd heard or…"

"Eret, you don't need to confess everything, you know. Unlike your mother, I assume you're going to get into trouble sometimes, I'd rather that you didn't plunge into forest fires, of course," he gives me a look and I duck back down behind the map. "Don't tell your mother, but I think being so hard on you is going to make you rebel."

"What are you talking about, Dad?" I turn and sit on the arm of his chair, holding the map so we both can see it. Something does look funny about the channel but I'm not quite sure what. "I'm not a rebel. I still use Arvid's fists to fight my battles."

"You _aim_ Arvid's fists." He rests a hand on my shoulder and I shrug, clearing my throat and peering closer to the map.

"I think this island has a peninsula here? Maybe? And that would possibly have a rip current coming out and—maybe we should just go take a look at it. It's not a long flight."

"Let's take the boat. I could go for the walk through the village."

"Yeah?" I cock my head and roll the map up. Dad normally avoids the village, he says it's because he didn't grow up here and it never quite started feeling like home, but I think it has something to do with the chief. Arvid didn't get his voice from nowhere. "Why?"

"Skullcrusher deserves the day off, he went straight back to sleep after breakfast."

"Ok…but can Bang still come?" I grin hopefully. "He'd probably like to go on a flame free adventure."

"Fine," Dad shakes his head and holds a hand out for the map, taking it from me and waving me towards the door. "I'll meet you outside."

We chat about fishing on the way down the hill, about his new reels and nets and the possibility of building a few new ships this winter, maybe even with some of the wood I cut down for the chief. He doesn't seem too terribly excited about my new _job_, but he doesn't tell me not to do it and I file it away under the good old Hofferson-Haddock rivalry.

I've heard it goes back to dragon training, back when they used to kill dragons and the chief decided not to. Mom was going to be a great dragon killer, but I'm glad things went the way they did. And given how much she loves Stormfly, she's probably glad too. I don't really know what else would have happened afterwards, it's not like the chief is that much better with dragons or anything. His Night Fury doesn't even listen to him, he runs off after strange kids in forest fires, thank Thor.

It's probably just one of those competitive things. I've never really been as bad about that as my siblings, especially Arvid. Ingrid has the competition bug too, but she already won years ago when she pummeled a grown man in the ring for badmouthing someone. Maybe Spitleaf? I don't know. I just know that she could have killed him, but settled for yelling at him instead, and she was only fourteen.

Rolf doesn't really have it, I guess. And we should probably be closer. It's probably something to do with the age difference, he's seven years older than me and married and always spent all his time in the library. I swear, it's like my mom had a weirdo lovechild with Fishlegs.

Which is impossible. There's a reason that my mom and dad didn't get married until they were older. It was perfect, they had to wait for it.

Dad wraps an arm around my shoulders as we walk through the square and I smile, scratching the top of Bang's head as he pushes his face against my leg. I rarely get enough time alone with Dad, and I wonder if Arvid is somewhere being jealous when the back of my neck starts to burn. I look around, ready to stick my tongue out at my brother even if it means he'll come follow us but I make eye contact with the chief of all people.

He looks mad, but as soon as he sees me he puts on a smile, raising his hand in greeting. I return it unthinking, a lackadaisical half wave before going back to stroking Bang's scaly head.

Dad mutters something about it getting late and rushes me the rest of the way to the dock.


	4. And the Father is

I leave Bang next to the barn and jog up to the house. Dad is still with the ship, taking the long way back, but one of his oars isn't looking so great so I offered to run back and grab him a new one. I think there are some in Ingrid's room, Dad and I were working on them last weekend and there's one close enough to done to use, isn't there?

I'm lost in my thoughts and almost don't notice the yelling. It's enough to make me pause, and something pounds on the wall before Mom starts getting _loud_.

That's the thing about strong silent types, when they yell, they really _yell_.

I don't recognize the second voice right away, but an uncomfortable sense of familiarity swirls in the pit of my stomach. I press my ear against the door and try to glean more, but it doesn't help. Don't most screaming men sound the same anyway? Why is mom screaming at a random man?

They're really going at it, but Mom's winning, louder and crazier than I've ever heard her. The man booms something in response and I swear I recognize it from somewhere. They…they're preoccupied enough that they won't notice me, right? I sneak forward and crack open the door, peering through the inch wide gap and wincing when the axe strapped to my back knocks against the door frame.

Mom doesn't notice, she's red in the face and screaming, holding onto the back of one of the wooden chairs like she's going to beat someone with it. Go Mom.

"—have to drop this, chief. You aren't a part of his life—" Chief? Sure enough the chief stalks into view, pounding a furious fist on the hearth and whirling on my mom.

"Whose fault is that?"

"Don't go blaming this on Eret, he's my husband—"

"Don't remind me!" The chief clutches his head and groans and Mom shrinks back slightly, leaning on the chair instead of threatening to use it as a club.

"Are you really going to start that again?"

"I haven't stopped, you know we should be together—"

"I don't _know_ anything like that." The chief turns to my mom and advances into her punching range like an idiot, but she doesn't hit him.

I'm hearing what they're saying, but it doesn't seem to make any sense. All of the words have lost their meaning, they might as well be howling at each other.

"You know we're meant—"

"I can make my own decisions! I have made my own decisions."

"Look at our _son_, Astrid. _Look at him_ and tell me we're not right together!"

I can't breathe.

Their son? They have a son?

I stumble and the door swings open, and Mom looks at me like she's seeing a draugr. The chief freezes too, clearing his throat.

"You two have a son?" My voice is louder than I expected somehow, echoing off of the walls. Their silence is answer enough. "I have a half-brother I've never met?"

Mom freezes and I look to the chief. "Where is he?"

"Not far away at all," the chief stares at me, mouth gaping open halfway. I curl my lip.

"Well thanks for your clarity."

"Glad I could help."

Mom looks between us and glares briefly before sobbing, crumpling alarmingly and burying her face in her hands.

"Oh Mom, don't cry—"

"Astrid—"

We move towards her at the same time, both resting a hand on her shoulder. She shrugs the hands off and growls through a sniff and the chief is back to staring at me.

"What?" I snap, combing my hand back through my hair. Mom sobs again and I look back at the chief, who is so conveniently still staring at me. "_What_?"

The man sighs and clutches a handful of his hair. I freeze, looking between him and Mom.

The freckles on my nose. My chin. All those things that aren't quite Dad or Arvid or Rolf.

"Eret," Mom looks up, red eyed and earnest as she rests her hand on my arm.

"Are you seriously—What are you saying?" I laugh because it has to be a joke. There's no other explanation. A really stupid, unfunny joke. I half expect Arvid to jump out from behind a corner and laugh at me. "You're kidding me. You're—Dad is always saying that the chief is a nut, he must be right. You don't have a son at all—"

"Eret," Mom repeats, looking between me and the chief again. "Why don't we sit down?"

"No!" I stare back at the chief and his gray streaked hair and his narrow face and I can see it. It's—"You lied to me! That growth spurt is never even coming, I—How could you do this to Dad?"

Mom looks at the table and takes her hand off my arm. I want to apologize, but I don't.

"Eret—" The chief steps towards me.

"Don't talk to me! Don't you ever talk to me."

I look between them one last time before running out of the house. Bang is already waiting, concerned and primed to fly and we take off.

00000

It's the middle of the night by the time that the Nightmare appears on the horizon, silhouetted against the stars. I'm half tempted to get up and fly away, because I don't want to talk to Arvid and I don't want confirmation, I don't want this to be real yet.

Or ever.

He lands next to me on the sea stack and greets Bang with a pat on the head before sitting down beside me on the rock. He nudges my shoulder with his.

"Everyone is out looking for you."

"Does _everyone_ include the chief?" I sneer at the dull white topped waves below, curling my knees up towards my chest.

"Why would everyone include the chief?"

I blink at him and it all comes rushing out, "I caught Mom and the chief arguing and…and I—I'm not Dad's kid. I'm the chief's kid."

"What?"

"Now's not the time to be slow on the pick-up," I slap my hand on the rock until it stings, chewing on my lower lip. "I'm the chief's kid. Somehow. I caught them arguing about having a kid and it's me."

"No shit," Arvid flops back on the sea stack with his arms folded behind his head, and I'm still shaking. I stand up and start pacing, my new old boots scuffing along the granite.

"No shit."

"The chief is your father?" My brother—half-brother, he's my half-brother—looks at me for a moment before shrugging almost appraisingly. "I can see it."

"Yeah, me too. It's pretty damned obvious, isn't it?" I tug at my hair. "Just cut off my foot and call me mini-chief."

"I wouldn't say mini-chief. I'd say you already caught up to him."

"How are you so calm about this?"

Arvid shrugs and I can see his brain trying to drift away, trying to categorize this new information. When he hates the chief is he hating me? Am I hating me? Do I hate the chief?

"You walked in on them yelling at each other?" He asks and I shrug. "You were eavesdropping again, weren't you? What exactly did you hear?"

"He…" I think back and try to remember back to that other life, before the big secret came out. "He was saying he and Mom are supposed to be together because their son is—because of _me_. I guess." I frown and try to make sense of it all.

Mom and the chief. Mom and Dad. The chief and me. Dad and Arvid.

Me and Dad.

"Now you're just shitting me. He didn't say it was because of you. He has two kids younger than you, he has heirs—"

"Augh! Eww!" It hits me like a brick and I shake my head. "That's disgusting. That's even worse than the lying!"

"What is?" Arvid sits up, looking at me like I'm going to explode. 

Frankly, I won't be exploding for a _while_.

"Aurelia is my half-sister," I gag a bit and Arvid laughs so hard he has to hold his stomach. Too hard. A last hurrah. "The theatrical laughing always feels so fantastic. Thanks for that."

"You—I can kind of hear it now, you know?" He's still laughing as he stands. "You kind of sound like him when I piss you off."

"I do?"

"Yeah, like when he snaps at Snotlout."

"Congratulations on naming yourself our generation's Snotlout."

He blinks slowly, "that's—that's actually uncanny. How did I never see it before?"

"Tongue too deep in some girl's throat?"

"Ok, that's just weird," Arvid steps closer and hunches down in a way that's absolutely wonderful for my ego, staring too closely at my face.

He looks like Dad—like _his_ dad—no chin tattoo's obviously, because he'll never be big enough to stop being afraid of mom. Blue eyes and a different nose, but he's _dad_. We always used to joke that he could pick up girls by pointing at Dad and telling them that's what he'll look like in thirty years.

I tried the same line once and got laughed into the street. Maybe I should point to the chief next time and win some pity attention.

Come here ladies, come be the first one to love the chief's forgotten bastard.

Loki's balls, I'm a _bastard_.

"Did you find your dignity yet?" I snap and step away, resuming my pacing and he shakes his head.

"Now that I heard it, I can't stop. It's like the chief just asked about my dignity. I wouldn't—Oh Gods, this is why Dad hates the chief, isn't it?"

"No shit." I frown at the ground, "everyone must know if it's this obvious. This…this explains all the rooms I've silenced over the years."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Arvid pats my shoulder and I shake it off. "It's just your face."

"Exactly, it's my face." I stare at the waves for another minute and look up at him. Something about what I'm going to say feels irreversible. "Do you realize what this means? Mom slept with the chief while she was married to Dad."

"Yeah."

"When you were just a few months old." My hands are shaking slightly and I shove them in my pockets, exhaling. "She—with the _chief_."

"Yeah. With the chief." He gestures towards the dragons. "Home? Or are we going to keep flying?"

That's so tempting. Just climb on Bang and _go_. Everyone has heard the chief's stories, even us, trickled through so many speakers that we don't know what the truth is anymore. But no matter how much I want to see the mainland, I can't run from this now. I have to stay, I have to try and help, to try and hold this together.

"Home. I just—I'm just going to stay here a little longer, alright?" I sit back down and he joins me, Wingspark moving to curl up behind us, a warm wall against the wind.

00000

Rolf is sitting at the table, taking up half the space in the room like he always used to before he got his new family lodge right across the path from the Ingermann's. I pause in the doorway and Arvid runs into me, swearing at the back of my head and shouldering me out of the way, like everything is normal.

"Hey Rolf," I test the water. As a kid I was always annoying, always loud. Rolf is the smartest guy I know, but he never really had _time_ for me, he was always so busy with his job at the library or _research_.

"So, you heard."

Arvid stops dead in the middle of the room, hand lingering on the back of his chair at the table. "You knew?"

"Everyone knows," Rolf runs his hand back through his short, honey blonde hair and looks around the room. "Nothing has changed around here. The house still looks exactly the same."

"You could have stopped by and visited," I sigh and chew on the inside of my cheek, but I can't stop the rest of my thought from spilling out. "Told me who my father was, played some catch. Normal big brother stuff."

"I always knew," he looks at the table. "The chief used to be around all the time, when you were a kid."

"You remember that?"

"I was seven. I remember him standing in the living room with your mother like he belonged here. Holding you. Drinking tea. And there were strict instructions for me and Ingrid not to tell Dad." Rolf shakes his head again and looks at me, "he had a baby, but he was always here holding you."

"Good—" I swallow hard, "good to know that I'm interchangeable with any other baby."

"Is it time for that right now, Eret?" Rolf spits my name, and the sweet smell in my nose makes sense as mead. I look at Arvid and he shrugs, eyebrows furrowed in my direction.

"What is it time for? Are you going to lecture me for being a bastard?" My voice dips, and I'm _mad_. I don't care that he smells like honey and liquor and that I haven't seen him for more than five minutes since helping him move. "Because I chose this, absolutely. I made some decision before I was fucking born to—"

"Eret," Arvid rests his hand on my shoulder, holding me back like I've done a million times to him. I try to shrug him off and he talks over my low growl, "So this is why you never really liked him. No, it makes sense," a squeeze that tells me he's calming Rolf down. Calming that Berserker trait so rarely seen.

"You were just a kid, but you were already so like him."

"What…" I shrink back slightly, "what if I was just like you? You were the only other one around here who made things. That's obviously in there, somewhere. It could be Mom…"

"She's out looking for you. Everyone is." Rolf shakes his head, "I'm supposed to be but—but I thought I'd just enjoy the quiet. My wife is pregnant, all her sisters are clucking around like hens—"

And he's changing the subject again. Because the house or his baby or the chief, there's always something more important than me. I remember being five years old with a skinned knee, Rolf trying the whole time to show Mom his rock collection.

"Are you sure it's yours?"

Arvid's hand claps down on my shoulder and he pulls me back, already trying to mollify the situation, "Let's talk this through—"

"_Scared_ him off!" Mom's voice reverberates through the walls and we all freeze, staring at the still open door. "…never come around! Why the hell—"

"Should have done this _years_ ago!" A man's voice returns and Arvid's hand leaves my shoulder, tightening into a fist.

It's the chief.

The pair of them—and they're walking shoulder to shoulder. A legitimate pair—walk up to the doorway together, pausing immediately outside. Mom's eyes widen and she rushes inside, throwing her arms around me before I can move, squeezing me until it hurts.

"…so worried. So incredibly worried," she smacks my back, not hard enough to hurt, "what the Hel were you thinking? Running off like that?"

"Is he alright?" The chief's voice cuts through the room like a knife and Rolf slams his hands on the table, swears mounting in a growl. A caged gronckle, pushed to fight and determined to destroy.

"Rolf!" Mom pulls half way out of the hug and shouts, but he doesn't hear her, and we're all left staring at the chief, two steps inside the door, silver hair shining in the candle light.

Arvid moves first, fists balling by his sides as he steps forward, snarling. Mom hugs me again and glares at him, "Arvid, no."

"What?" Arvid turns back, obviously astounded that he doesn't have free reign on the chief's face.

"Is he alright?" He asks again, and I shrug Mom's arm off of my shoulder, stepping towards the neutral center of the room.

No one answers. Arvid stares at the chief and back at me, thick brow deepening over his eyes. I stare at my feet. My feet in Rolf's old boots.

"Leave." Mom tells him, voice low and deadly.

"I just want to know if my _son_ is alright!" The chief roars, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III noble and present in our humble living room.

"I'm not your son." I look up at him, clearing my throat. "I'm not your son. I'm not your anything. I don't even know you—"

"E-Eret," he stumbles over my name, his hand stretching across the place between us, and we're lined up, flanked by Mom and Arvid. Matched in the center.

"Not your son."

"Get out of here, Hiccup."

I've never heard Mom say his name before, not like it's a word instead of a slur. His _first_ name, and it strikes me that he has one. It's not a title, it's not inscribed on a page of a Berkian history book in Rolf's Thor-damned library. It's a name that his family calls him, that my own fucking mother calls him.

"Astrid…" It's a plea, and he's barely even a chief. He's just some weirdo checking out my mom at the market, Snotlout when he's had too much to drink.

"Get out of here!" I echo. The chief looks at me like I'm not speaking plain Norse. Like I'm not making any sense. "Get out of my house. I don't know you, get away from me."

Mom hugs me and I let her.

The chief lingers for a moment and I can feel Arvid sizing him up. That brother to brother telepathy bouncing off of me unheard. Should we take him? Can we take him? Arvid's toes squeak on the floor and I wait for him to pounce, for this to become a brawl, something I _understand_.

"I'll…I—"

"Go, Hiccup." Mom's voice is unbearably gentle and her arm is suddenly cold. Hard. Uncomfortable across my shoulders.

The chief leaves and Arvid shuts the door behind him.

I throw Mom's arm off and start pacing, tugging at my hair and dodging Arvid's arm as he tries to stop me. Mom's voice breaks my trance, "Honey—"

"Do you call the chief _Honey_?"

"I—"

"You fought with him like—like an old fucking married couple." I start pacing again, "Is that what you do when we're not around? You fight with the chief?"

"When she's not fucking him," Rolf rolls his eyes, too casually leaning on the table. Like he belongs here.

He does. I don't.

Did I kick him out? Did he leave because of me? He's all dad in his chin, in his shoulders. I've got nothing.

"Rolf," Mom growls, and all three of us freeze, even Rolf, suddenly keenly aware of the line that just lapsed. He wilts like a fawn, faced with a Rumblehorn on a rampage.

"I'm going to bed." I announce and stalk off towards my loft, scrambling up the stairs and flopping onto the furs on my bed, cold and neat, unslept in. The last time I slept in this bed, everything was normal. Everything made sense.

A clatter downstairs, Bang's familiar toenails on the floor, and someone opens the door for him. He bounds in and curls up around me, beside me, halfway on top of me so that I can barely breathe. I wait for the door to close.

It doesn't.

"Eret…"

"Go away, Mom." Any other day, saying anything like that would be a death wish. It'd land me in the barn for the night. I can't quite bring myself to care.

She doesn't say anything. The door shuts behind her and it's _quiet_.


	5. Not So Secret

00000

I _sleep_ late. If staring at the ceiling while Bang snores can be considered sleeping. Arvid says my name when he gets up but leaves me alone when I don't answer, unusually somber as he closes the door near silently behind him. Mom knocks on my door sometime past breakfast, long after my stomach starts growling, but she doesn't pry and I accept the silence, head nestled against Bang's cool side. He'll be too big for my bed soon.

Mom leaves eventually, I hear Stormfly squawking outside and take the chance to dash out, to get down to work before someone shows up to remind me of last night, as if I need reminding.

There's breakfast on the table at my usual spot. More than usual. A whole apple tart from the bakery, the kind that Arvid and I usually have to fight over. It makes me nauseous and I try to feed it to Bang, but the dragon seems to have lost his appetite too. The food ends up on top of the ashes in the hearth.

I push out of the front door and stop for a second, just a damn second, to adjust Bang's saddle, and my spine tingles. Someone's watching.

I turn around and of course it's the chief, leaning against the side of my house, pushing to his feet and dusting off his clothes. I sneer at him.

"Eret! Good—good morning. How did you sleep?"

I don't answer, stalking off towards town as fast as I can on foot, Bang's loose saddle jingling beside me. The chief falls into step beside me, his Night Fury curious at his heels. The black dragon sniffs my hand and I bat it away, ignoring them both as completely as I can.

"I didn't sleep, I—there's something I want to talk to you about." He says urgently. I still don't look at him and his metal foot scuffs against a rock like punctuation. "Now that…now that you know about me being your father, I wanted to talk to you about—You're great. You're a great kid. And I want to think about you—I want you to think about what all of this—Ok," he reaches out and sets his hand on my shoulder.

I shrug it off without looking at him and walk faster, urging Bang between us in the middle of the path. The treacherous Thunderdrum accepts the assholes scratches but acts as a barrier between us anyway and I pat his nose, searching for the forge on the horizon.

"Let me start over. I'm chief, and you're my first born. And I'm not as young as I used to be, I'm starting to age—that sounds horrible. I rehearsed this all morning and it's horrible. It's not going well. You aren't even listening to me—op, you're walking faster, you must be listening."

I take a sharp right, and he jogs to keep up, that foot scraping and scraping on the stone so distinctively. I wonder if mom would recognize it. I wonder how the hell she even knows the chief, no one in my family knows the damn chief. I know that she knows Snotlout from when they were kids, but still, that's just a loose—such a loose—family connection with the chief.

How am I even _here_?

"Chief. I need an heir to be chief. Aurelia…she's heir, but she isn't _heir_. She's not—She's my daughter and this isn't some boy-girl thing, it's just—you have Bam—"

"Bang." I correct him quietly, eyes narrowing on the forge ahead of us.

"Bang?"

"His name is Bang."

"You have _Bang_, and you're so—you're your mother's son. And I—She's not my best friend at the moment but I trust her. And I trust…I want to trust you. I want to talk to you about being chief after I retire. I want to start giving you some training and seeing how it might go." He pauses and I ignore him completely, eyes hard on the forge in front of me.

"Chief training. I want to start training you to be chief. After I retire. Or die." A heavy sigh that I want absolutely nothing to do with, "I want to make you my heir, Eret. You're my first born and—" Bang trots ahead and jumps onto the forge roof like he always does, curling in the sun and I walk with a little more purpose, batting the Night Fury's head away again, wiping its hot breath on my pants. "I want you to be my first born officially."

Finally. I step through the back door of the forge and turn around, slamming it in the chief's face.

The door opens not a damn second later and the chief is _smiling_. Smiling at me and waltzing into the forge like he owns the place. He rests his hand on a saddle rack and it's too much, too close. This is my turf, he can't just—

"No," I turn around towards him and shake my head, puffing out my chest. He's really not that much bigger than me, probably not _bigger_ than me at all, just a few inches taller. I'm probably heavier than him, to be honest, my dragon isn't so damn dainty.

"No what—"

"No. You can't be in here, you can't be back here, you don't even fucking work here—"

"I used to work here, with Gobber. When I was your age." And it's the start of a gods-damned story, one of those stories that Dad is always joking about. The chief's gods-damned sagas, like he was the first gods-damned asshole to do anything exciting.

"Is this bonding time?" I scoff and clench my fists, facing off with him. His Night Fury peaks his head around the doorway and Bang coughs on the roof.

Bang and I, standing up to the alphas. "Because I've got work to do, I don't have time to talk to your pretentious, lying ass right now."

"Hiccup!" Gobber barks from behind us and I step aside, scowling at the chief one last time and stomping to the other side of the forge, scratching Grump's head as he flops down in his normal place and stoking the fire. "Haven't ye done enough?"

"He's my _son_, he knows he's my son—"

"Ye made a million and one mistakes with his mother, that doesn't give you a right to be in his life."

"He's my son."

"He's here to work, Hiccup. Ye can talk to him on his own time—and if you're smart ye'll wait until Astrid is around. He's a boy—"

"Gobber," the chief feels fucking at home here, doesn't he? Standing by that saddle mold and chatting with Gobber, pleading. I can picture him at sixteen, wishing for a day off and looking like—like a skinnier, more pathetic version of _me_.

"Get him out of here." I cut him off and Grump snorts, warm almost snore wafting over my knee.

"Hiccup, leave." Gobber sighs, and he sounds like he does when he's sick of my unique brand of bullshit.

Less unique than I thought.

"I was just trying to talk to him," the chief _begs_, "talk to him about having some sort of relationship, about being _chief_."

It sinks in this time, that he's serious. That it's not just some bribe to get my attention. Even if it is some dimwitted bribe, it still includes chief and me, and those people outside who've never been my biggest fans.

"And ye think Berk will accept him as chief just because of you and Astrid?"

_You and Astrid_. The chief and my mom.

Like…like the village will easily accept the news of the chief being my father, like it's obvious that great chief Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III had a bastard mistake with Astrid Hofferson, village outcast.

"Everyone knows." I mutter, staring into the simmering coals, crackling in the hearth. "Everyone knows, don't they?" I whirl on the two men and they both stare at me, Gobber's gray, golden tipped moustache the only movement between them. "It was bad enough when it was just Rolf keeping this from me, but it's the whole fucking village?"

It turns into yelling at some point and Grump shifts, Bang's feet clicking on the roof, as worried as I feel.

"Why don't…why don't ye take the day off." Gobber sighs.

The chief is still _here_. For some reason. Lurking in the corner like he's been for my entire life, apparently.

My growth spurt is probably a pipe dream.

"Right. And I'll go into the village instead, where everyone has been _lying_ to me for sixteen years. Or oh! Brilliant idea, I can go home and talk to my mother, who's been lying to my _face_ every single day of my damned life."

I hate this. I'm screaming at Gobber and he doesn't even care, ducking his head and letting me. Nothing is the same anymore, nothing is ever going to be the same. I'm going to be fucking chief and everyone is going to listen unflinchingly to my obnoxious fucking stories like I'm so gods-damned interesting, just because I'm that asshole's bastard.

"Eret, if we could just go somewhere and talk—"

Gobber sighs and grabs the chief's shoulder, shoving him towards the open back door, the accusatory Night Fury eyes staring me down. Asking me why I'm yelling, why I don't love his so-praised rider like everyone else. That dragon is spoiled, that dragon has always been spoiled. It's ridiculous.

It's almost human, that green eyed disappointment. Probably so similar to what the chief might look like sitting next to Mom at the table and lecturing me because Bang got into the shed again.

I bail out of the front window, swinging my legs through the gap and thanking whatever gods aren't against me when Bang reads my mind, jumping down off of the roof and meeting me in front of the forge. I swing onto his back and click him into the air, headed nowhere as fast as I possibly can.

00000

My axe isn't big enough. These trees are too big. Nothing is fucking working.

I whirl and toss the axe into the pulpy trunk in front of me as hard as I can, yelling when it sinks in. Sweat is running down my forehead, the back of my neck, and I push my soggy hair away from my face, stomping up to the tree to retrieve my weapon.

"Stupid fucking—thinks he's my fucking dad—"

I yank my axe out with a scream, because I'm the only human on this whole island and Bang is used to noise anyway. I scream again, for the Hel of it, and Bang groans in my general direction. Worried.

"I'm fine boy, I'm—Everything is so messed up." I start pacing, twirling the axe slowly, like Mom when she's just thinking about killing something. Like she used to when she told me and Arvid stories of her crazier days, with Snotlout and Fishlegs and the twins, fighting the Berserkers. "Everyone knows! Apparently all of fucking Midgard knows that I'm the chief's mistake. That my mom—that she—"

I yell again and the axe sticks into the pulverized trunk. The tree creaks. For a second I almost hope it falls. Leave my shirt here and fly away, trick everyone into thinking I've been horribly crushed in a freak lumber accident.

Arvid would hunt me down. Mom would hunt me down. I think of Stormfly's stern, almost motherly face, lecturing me about being out too late when I stash Wingspark for Arvid in the barn in the early hours of daylight.

I have to go back at some point, don't I?

I'm not like the chief, I'm not going to go have a horde of adventures and live the rest of my life basking in their supposed glory. I wonder if I'm still a fisherman, if dad is still planning to give me and Arvid the fleet, like he always talked about.

Thinking about Dad makes this all worse. Because he's my _dad_, he's the one who checked under the bed for Visigoths when Ingrid told us pillaging stories that were too scary. He taught me how to fish and how to steer a boat and how to haggle those rare weekends we went down to the market. He's the one who still hugged me even after Arvid said we were too big and hugging was for pansies.

I throw the axe again, crying out as it wrenches its way from my grip, more raw power than finesse.

Mom would call it sloppy.

Mom is sloppy. I'm a whole average sized heap of proof that Mom is sloppy.

"I thought you were a dying animal."

The last thing I expect to hear out here is another human voice and I spin towards it, fists raised. Fuse is standing by Bang, Hotgut at her heels looking as bored as she normally does. She quirks a strawberry blonde eyebrow at me and I deflate, clearing my throat. It's sore. I yelled too much.

"I swear too much to be a dying animal."

"True. Dying animals are usually less articulate."

I can't tell if it's a joke or not. Fuse isn't normally one to joke. I laugh anyway.

"Sorry you had to witness my tantrum. I'm sure it was…something." I walk back towards the tree and jerk my axe free with loose shoulders, checking the blade for nicks and wondering when the forge will be chief free so I can get back to sharpen it.

Maybe I shouldn't count on that. Ingrid would help me break into some other island's forge, she likes that kind of reckless shit.

Or maybe she wouldn't help me. Maybe that's the kind of thing you only do for your little brother, not your mother's little mistake.

"I heard."

"I'm sure every dragon on the island heard."

The axe is heavier than I remember somehow and I walk over towards Fuse, strapping my weapon back into its familiar holster on Bang's saddle. "I thought I was alone."

"No, I heard about you learning the chief is your real father."

"Does _everyone_ fucking know? Was Arvid faking shock last night?"

"I doubt that," Fuse rolls her eyes and scratches Bang's nose again. "I figured it out myself. Arvid couldn't figure out the runes if you wrote it down and handed it to him."

I almost jump to Arvid's defense. I don't have it in me to fight about nothing, "how obvious is it?"

"I always knew you weren't _vain_," she smiles, "have you looked in a mirror lately?"

"It's not—I look like my mom. I've always looked more like my mom—" The retort dies in my throat when I remember it was Mom's assurance. "She always told me that I took after her Uncle Finn."

"Fearless Finn Hofferson was blonde."

"Yeah, and hair color isn't the only way you can look like someone. You look like Tuffnut but your hair is _pink_."

"Did you get that one from Arvid?" Fuse shakes her head and adjusts a bag I hadn't noticed before. It's sealed tight with oilskin and I take half a step back, remembering that it's likely something highly explosive.

"It wasn't an insult. What's in the bag? Should I be nervous?" The nerves fall away to the same reckless curiosity that had me staring at a creaky tree a few minutes ago and my hand gestures aimlessly towards the satchel. "Is it something for the…explosion aiming thing I'm supposed to making you?" I frown, "shit, I'm probably not going to have that done."

"I figured," she shrugs and pats the bag, gingerly. "Stinkweed from the bog. I'm almost out of stink bombs."

"Can you do me a favor?" I lean against Bang, forehead against his hide so all I see is blue. "Can you keep them away from my house? I'm not in the mood to scrub the floors with Arvid while he whines."

"Sure."

"Really?" I look up, narrowing my eyes, "is this the start of you being awkwardly nice to me like everyone else because I'm the chief's bastard child?"

"I would have done it before if you just asked. Arvid's my favorite target, but I never realized you had to help clean it up." She adjusts the bag again, like it's heavy and I look at the forest floor, covered by soft pine needles.

"I think—I think I'm done with my tantrum if you wanted to hang out for a bit. As long as the stink bombs aren't urgent or anything…"

"I do have to get the stink weed back before it putrifies—"

"Oh yeah, makes sense. Don't let it putrify around me," I hold my hands out like I'm repelling the smell and she cocks her head, one of her long pink braids pooling against her shoulder.

"If you wanted to help me, I'd give you a few of the finished products."

"I—I don't really want to go back to Berk right now. The chief is…I think he's sort of stalking me. He was outside my house this morning and he followed me to the forge and—"

"Here," she pulls something out of her pocket, two small, clay capsules with waxy wicks sticking out. "Take the rest of what I have. You can help me out some other time."

"Oh no, you don't have to give me these," I say it out of obligation, but my fingers curl possessively around the soothingly warm clay. I can think of a couple of chiefly windows I'd love to chuck these through.

I won't even get Fuse in trouble, I'll make it fucking clear who did it.

"I'm going to make more right now. I never tip you enough at the forge anyway."

"No one else tips me at all, Fuse. I'm an apprentice, I get paid in experience." I laugh but it slips off of my face. Bang snuffles against my leg, quietly comforting. "At least that's what Gobber used to yell at me. Back when he yelled at me. I screamed in his face this morning and he didn't say anything."

"Maybe you should stop screaming at people."

"That isn't sarcasm, is it?" I frown at her and she shrugs.

"It's not Gobber's fault."

"The whole village kept this secret. Everyone knows and no one thought to tell me. _You_ know and—and why didn't you tell me?"

"It never came up."

"You couldn't make it come up? How hard would it have been to just throw it out there, 'here Eret, I have this crazy plan and guess what, I think the chief is your father'." I'm panting and I don't know why. This is more scalding than facing the chief, of course the chief knew, but right now Fuse is all those villagers who gossiped behind my back all of these years and never _said_ anything.

They never said anything when I talked about having a rumblehorn someday, when Bang has to leave for the ocean. They never said anything when I suggested additions to the dragon barns that the chief built when he was my age. They _never_ said anything.

"It's not my business." She looks upset though, freckled cheeks flushed. "You probably shouldn't come help me today anyway, you're too shaky, you'd kill us both."

Again, not joking.

"Thanks for these." I wave the bombs at her and she shrugs again.

"My brothers say I'm a good listener. It's probably because they talk to me while I'm working and I'm not really paying attention but anyway—just let me know, alright?"

"Why are you being so nice to me?" I shake my head. "Just because I'm the chief's kid—"

"This has nothing to do with that. This is the first time I've seen you outside the forge without Arvid in years. I just don't want to be nice to him."

"Oh." I'm not quite sure what to make of this.

"Anyway. I'll see you later, I hope. You have fun throwing those through the chief's windows. Make sure Stoick isn't inside first though, he's skittish enough without being bombed."

"Right, good point." I nod, and it hits me that the chief's skittish little waif of a son is my half-brother. I can feel the family resemblance in the ache for a growth spurt that's _not coming_. Fuck. "Wait, how did you know I was going to throw them into the chief's house? I never told you that."

She climbs into Hotgut's saddle and shrugs again, adjusting the bag of deadly cargo. "You aren't that subtle."

"Is anything subtle to you?" I tuck the bombs into my own pocket. A promise.

I should go home and try to figure this out, this new world I'm living in where my family is full of practical strangers. They're still the people I grew up with and that should count for something, right? I hope it does.

"I'll see you around, Eret."

She lifts off, vertically like gronckles do, Hotgut's stomach shockingly purple against the green of the trees. I turn to Bang and pat his head.

"Let's go talk to Dad."

He lifts his wide head in alarm and I flick his nose, "no, real dad. The one we like."


	6. The Rock and the Hard Place

Dad is where I first look for him, cruising around that badly rendered shoreline and messing with his map. I take Bang above the clouds in a moment of caution and circle the ship, peering down at those familiar blue sails, the still slightly ashy ocean. My hands don't hurt much today, and I hate the fact that I have the chief to thank for treating them so quickly.

Dad is alone. I was half expecting Arvid to be with him, but Arvid is useless with maps anyway.

I stroke Bang's back and linger in the sky for a moment because what if he doesn't want to see me? He had to _know_ before today, didn't he? If the chief knew and the whole village knew he had to have known.

Fuse knew. It's obvious.

I steel myself. Worst case scenario?

Worst case scenario I get on Bang and leave. If Dad—If he's not my dad anymore, if he hates me, then it's not really family on Berk anyway. I know Ingrid has been talking about leaving soon and maybe I could tag along until I was somewhere new, somewhere else.

In the moment, that sounds horrible.

Bang lands by the bow of the ship like he's done a million times and I slide down onto the deck, trying my best to smile. Dad sets down the map and looks at me for a second, like I've got a second head, before he paces across the boat and hugs me.

"Oh. Ok." I return the hug and he thumps the center of my back, too hard, like he always does.

"I was out all night looking for you, and when I got back this morning you weren't at the forge—"

"Gobber sent me home early," I sigh and stare at my feet, wondering if it's even worth saying what I need to, or whether I should just accept the hug and fly back home before dealing with anything.

That's the coward's way out. Dad would hate that. "The chief followed me down there and he wouldn't leave me alone."

Dad sighs and pats my shoulder, again, just like he always does. It makes me nervous, waiting for the shift.

He opens his mouth like he's going to say something and pauses, frowning. Here it comes, I can feel it, welling like a huge dangerous wave in the middle of a storm.

"Dad? Can I still call you dad? Is that—Let me start over." I step away from him and start pacing, feet pounding on the wood like it's hollow, and I can feel how _light_ I am compared to the heavy, steady shifting of his feet as he watches me. "I get it that I'm the chief's—No, I'm not the chief's anything. I'm—I still want to be your son. I mean—"

"Eret," he cuts me off with that calm voice, the doldrums to Mom's storm, and it just amps me up further because I don't have any of _that_. That—all of my dad. All of him. I'm none of that.

I don't even know what I am anymore.

"Son of Eret. I'm Eret, son of Eret, and I—" I sigh, because this isn't an argument I can win. I'm not going to convince him in either direction, am I? I'm just here to learn if there's half a fucking chance of maintaining _this_. What I thought was a father-son relationship and now just seems strange. Strange and so far away. "Son of Eret, reporting for duty. If you still want me, that is."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm—the chief and Mom say I'm their son, and it makes a whole lot of sense."

"Obviously," he laughs, but it's a sad laugh. "I said we should have told you years ago, it's a damn miracle you didn't guess before now."

"I hate this."

"That's better than the alternative," Dad leans back against the deck railing, crossing those arms I'm sure as Hel never going to grow into. "You could have spent the last sixteen years feeling like a reject and be absolutely thrilled to learn I'm not your real father. That would be worse."

"You're still my dad, if I can say that."

"Of course I'm still your dad. And you're still my son, you got that?" He points at me, a barely smiling accusation and I nod.

"Yeah. I've got it. That's—that's the best news I've had all day." I frown and look back at my feet, "the chief was asking me about being chief. After him. Like I could be his heir or something because I'm…_freckled_."

"I can't say anything about your freckles, but I will say that any son of mine would be a better chief than the one we have now."

"Really?" I look at him, taking a deep breath like I'm planning to inflate myself and letting it out without fanfare. "I—I don't even know what we're talking about here. I don't know what to think of the chief after me and…I don't _know_, Dad."

"And you don't have to, not right now." He steps forward and rests his hand on my shoulder. "But if the chief is asking you to be his heir—"

"Telling me. It was definitely _telling_."

"This is Hi—the chief we're talking about. Right, if he's trying to tell you to be his heir, it's because you're the best man for the job." He squeezes and lets go, "which you probably are."

"Such confidence," I roll my eyes but smile anyway, pulling the two little clay balls out of my pocket and holding them up. "Fuse Thorston gave me these."

Dad gets the look in his eyes like he's about to parent, confiscate them or something. "Stink bombs."

"Oh, I recognize them. Arvid's been trying to nick these for years."

"Is it…is it horrible if I go chuck them through the chief's windows?"

Dad shrugs, thinking for a minute.

"Let your brother help. Don't tell your mother." He looks towards the nets hanging off of the ship, "but before you go, help me reel in?"

It's such a normal request, such an everyday sort of thing that I jump on it, nearly jogging to the side of the boat. I reach the net before him and start pulling and Dad stops, hands frozen on the railing for a quiet moment.

"I thought you wanted help."

"Just a second," he pulls his silver wedding ring off of his hand and tucks it into his pocket.

"Why are you taking your ring off?"

He's never taken it off before, the skin underneath it bright white in the sun against his tan.

"Just—I just got a feeling. Some men's rings get caught, you know. I met a fisherman on outcast island, his ring snagged and ripped his whole finger off." His smile is a little too wide. Smug, Mom would say. Stop being so smug. I get it to sometimes, along with a flick to the ear.

"You don't want that."

"No. No, I don't." He yanks at the net, "shall we?"

00000

"I can't believe Thorston gave you stink bombs." Arvid says too loudly, standing behind me and holding one in his hand, pinching it alarmingly hard.

"Hey Magni, ease up. I want both of these to blow _inside_ the chief's house."

"She just _gave_ these to you?" He shakes his head, looking up towards the chief's house. "And you're wasting them on the _chief's _house?"

"I'm not wasting them," I scowl. "This is the best possible use of these little beauties."

"He's not even in there," Arvid scuffs his boots and takes a practice throw.

"I know. He's out with Stoick. I didn't want to do it with Stoick here."

"Caring about your brand new _brother_ already?"

"What?" I glance at him and he's pulling flint out of his pocket, sparking it experimentally.

"Are we doing this or what?" He hands me the flint and gestures towards the wick of his stink bomb, holding it out for me to light it.

"Yeah. Of course," I spark the flint a few times until one catches the dot of black powder at the end of the short fabric wick and lights it with a fizzling burn. "My turn."

He sets his slow burning bomb worryingly on the ground while he lights mine and we both hold them, waiting until the putrid green smoke starts to ooze out.

"I'm taking the upper window," I call it and Arvid laughs, again too loud.

"Isn't that the _princess's_ room?"

"So?"

His bomb starts to ooze and I take my cue, holding my breath and hurling it as hard as I can with tantrum sore shoulders, smiling for a second at the shattering glass before turning and dashing away from the puddle of stink where the first little bit of gas leaked out. Arvid destroys the lower window and follows me, grinning and flinging himself into Wingspark's saddle. I follow, glancing over my shoulder at the sickly green smoke pouring from the chief's broken windows.

00000

Arvid and I spend the afternoon showing off, avoiding Berk and skipping rocks on a calm pond we find in the woods. I want to stay and lure out a few terrors from the shadows but Arvid is restless, turning to chuck fist sized rocks into the woods and laugh as the trees shake slightly.

We head home before sundown, and he's so natural about it, so comfortable that I manage autopilot behind him, drifting through the still warm late summer air and staving off squirming nerves until we land in front of the house. Immediately, I cue on the yelling inside, recognizing the chief almost immediately this time.

"—just want to _talk_ to him, Astrid!"

"I'm not surprised, if you sprung chief on him when he was alone!"

"That's the chief again, isn't it?" Arvid growls, Wingspark butting her head comfortingly against his.

"Sounds like it," I sigh and take a determined step forward. Arvid doesn't move. "Aren't you coming?"

"I don't feel like dealing with him right now. For all he knows you threw both of those bombs."

"I fully intend to tell him I threw both of the bombs, I _want_ all of that credit."

"I'm going to sit this one out, little—Eret."

"You were going to call me…" Little Brother. Like always. "Never mind. Where are you going to go?"

"Somewhere I can't hear _her_ yelling."

"—the Hel, Hiccup?" Mom must pound on the table inside, really hit it. "You can just waltz into his life like this!"

"I'm his _father_!"

"Yeah, I'm really not in the mood to deal with this shit tonight. I'm going to go see if Gerd Johansen is interested in a little night flight."

"Don't you mean _Greta_?" I scoff, because he can't even remember their names anymore.

"Whatever."

"Don't make me do this alone, Arvid." I try it, despite my better instincts and he pauses for a moment before shaking his head.

"I'm not—If you want to sleep in my room, we can talk when I get home. Maybe. I just—I can't, Eret. Not right now," he shakes his head and Wingspark grumbles, quiet dragon conversation with Bang.

"Fine. Have fun with Gerd—"

"Greta—"

"Whatever, Arvid!"

He flies off and Bang dashes ahead of me, jumping onto the roof of the house and curling up, worried eyes gleaming in the sunset glow. I have to go in, don't I? Everything that happened today, all of those chances I could have run but didn't—I catch my breath and open the door.

My mom and the chief are on opposite sides of the table, his hands braced on the chair in front of him while she _yells_. Really yells.

"—can't do all of this—_any_ of this without talking to me first, Hiccup! He's my son—"

"And mine!"

"Is that really as far as you two have gotten in this argument?" I announce my entrance and they both turn to look at me, red-faced and shocked, like I snuck up on them or something. "Yes, I'm apparently your son. I've got that, can we move on from there?"

"You threw stink bombs through his windows," Mom turns on me, and it's not even an accusation. Something falsely disappointed glints in her eyes and I feel for a second like she might _laugh_. "Eret—"

"I'm not mad—" The chief interjects and Mom cuts him off with a glare. "I just want to talk to you, Eret, I realize—This morning I was wrong, I shouldn't have asked about chief when you were alone. I should have done it with your mother there—"

"Or his fa—dad. His Dad," Mom sighs, almost a growl.

"How about we leave Dad out of this?" I set my jaw, "this is shitty enough to Dad already, isn't it?" A glare at the chief and he looks at me like I'm familiar. I curl my lip at him.

"What do you think about chief?" Mom asks me, ignoring the chief's presence entirely. I'm not that talented.

"Can we talk about this later? Some other—I've had a long day, I haven't eaten anything—"

"We could go down to the mead hall and grab something," the chief jumps on my words, over-eager, like a dragon grasping for a treat.

"Leave me alone." I do my best to ignore him, to not look at him, like he's not even fucking there.

"Get out of here, Chief." Mom points towards the door and rests her hands on my shoulders, straightening my shirt. I can't bring myself to bat her hands away, or point out that she calls him _Hiccup_ when she's screaming.

"Astrid—" And there's something about the way that he says her name. Something unfamiliar that sounds too much like Mom and Dad in their bedroom together, when I'm not supposed to be looking. My face screws up for a second but then flattens, accepting.

I can't fight this. This is an enemy I can't fight. Dragons don't resist their alpha if they can cooperate.

"Let's talk about this tomorrow _chief_," it's an insult. Not a title. "I need to sleep, I had a long day of yelling and shattering your windows."

"Tomorrow Chief," _Mom_ echoes _me_. I stand up a little taller, adjusting the hem of my own shirt. "I'll get you some food, there's fish leftover."

The chief stares me down as he leaves, almost tripping over a rag that ended up on the floor at some point during their fight. I stare right back, trying to look as foreboding as possible. This isn't going to go away, I'm not going to wake up tomorrow with a strong chin and a few inches of growth. It's never going to go back to normal. Normal is gone.


	7. Two Halves Don't Make a Whole

Gobber is quiet. Gobber leaves to go 'pick up a delivery' before I can say two words to him. That's always a bad sign. I get to work on the pile of fire-mangled weapons, yanking half a warped sword from the stack and sticking it into the hearth to melt down. It's absurd to be in the forge like it's any other week, going through the same motions. I sigh, half-heartedly picking up a hammer and knocking it against the anvil.

"Eret," someone snaps at me, and I've never been more glad for the interruption.

"What?" I turn around to Aurelia on the other side of the counter, arms crossed. Looking like the goddamned chief. Looking like _me_. My stomach churns as all the unchiefly thoughts I've had of her flash through my mind.

"You threw a stink bomb through my window."

I smile, "Is that upper window yours, princess?"

"You knew it was my window."

"I can't say I did, I've never had much reason to learn the chief's floorplan," I bang the hammer against the anvil as hard as I can, because I'm angry and I want to look busy so she'll leave me alone. My arm throbs from the thud and I do it again, the clang ringing in my ears. Bang shifts on the roof, his webbed claws scratching at the wood and I will him not to come down here.

Contrary to popular belief, dragon-y interruptions are the opposite of helpful for sibling arguments.

"I should have known you were related to my dad," she rolls her eyes and leans forward on the forge counter, anything but the flirt she was a few days ago.

Gross. _Flirt_. Blech.

"I'm not anything to your dad," I grit my teeth and pick up a sword, laying its warped blade across the anvil and smacking it. Maybe if I hit it hard enough, it'll shatter. Maybe I can break it up into more pieces than I can count, metallic gravel all over the floor of the forge. Gobber would be pissed, maybe he'd even yell at me.

What I wouldn't give for someone to yell at me like I'm still annoying little Eret.

"You're his bastard," she doesn't say it like an insult and it cuts all the deeper for her simplicity. "What do your other siblings think? Did they know?" And her smile is something I'd dreamed about for _years_, back in the before. I wanted her to smile at me like that but now it's a threat. "Oh, sorry, your other _half-_siblings."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a raging bitch?" I whirl on her, hammer trembling in my hand, and I can't help but wonder what she'd do if I came at her. The whole village knows that Aurelia Haddock is as bad in a fight as she is on a dragon, and in this little slice of Hel I want to see her scared more than I've ever wanted anything.

"Your sister Ingrid doesn't seem to think so," her smile becomes a sneer. A snarl, and she looks so much like _me_ that I don't know how I didn't see it before, "I'm exactly her type, aren't I?"

"Shut up about my sister."

"What? I'm just saying that it runs in your fucked up half of the family, your _flannfluga_ sister _also_ thinks I'm—"

"Take it back," I roar, and from the way her eyes widen, I believe the rumors about her cowardice. I drop the hammer, I don't need it for this fight.

"It's just true, the whole village knows," her lips trembles, I wish I were bigger or scarier, that I could stop her from talking. "They probably care a lot more about that than the fact that you exist."

"Aurelia!"

I roll my eyes at the interruption, and the chief appears from nowhere.

"Come _on_! Are you stalking me or something?" I turn back to the anvil like he'll disappear, trying not to listen to his lies.

"I just wanted to make sure you were ok—"

"Oh? You're checking to make sure _he's_ ok?" Aurelia is downright shrill, "you're here to check on _him_? You've known him for less than a week, I've always been your daughter—"

"Aurelia! Come back here—"

"Fuck off," she stomps away like a terrible terror, tiny feet light and mincing across the square.

The chief sighs, the counter creaking when he leans his weight on it.

"Do you see why I interrupted the other day?" He laughs, a dry, breathy sound like he's in physical pain and I resist the million cheap insults run through my head.

"Maybe you should listen to your daughter and fuck off."

"If I listened every time someone told me to—aren't you a little young to be using that language?"

I glare at him over my shoulder, hands clenching around the lip of the anvil. It wouldn't do anyone any good if I choked him, not really. It might be fun, but I don't think it'd actually help anything.

Then Snotlout would be chief.

I wish I'd strangled the chief before I _knew_, back when I could have just gone on thinking that my dad was my dad and everything was fine.

"What? Are you going to wash my mouth out with soap?" I laugh, a deep, belly shaking laugh that couldn't be more fake. "I'd love to see you try."

"Gods, you sound just like your mother," he groans, and I look at him again, slumped over the counter, the top of his silvery head aimed towards me.

That's probably in my future, isn't it? Scrawny and gray-haired and _chief_. He wants me to be chief. Odin's balls, that's terrifying.

"Why do you want me to be chief?"

He looks up at me and frowns, "I'm not supposed to talk to you about that without your mom here."

"You're not supposed to talk to me at all without my mom here."

"There," he smiles, "that's why I want you to be chief. Your legislative mind. I used to be like that, finding the way around any rule someone tried to make."

"Gobber will be back soon, I can't imagine he'd be happy seeing you here."

"Can…Yeah. Yeah, we'll—I'll see you later."

"I really hope not," I don't really try to keep it under my breath as he shuffles away.

00000

"The chief says he wants me to be his heir because of my legislative mind," I huck a flat rock as hard as I can, watching it skip twice across the lagoon before sinking through the clear water to the bottom.

Arvid throws a miniature _boulder_ the size of his head, splashing the leaves above us.

"Are you going to do it?"

"Way to take the meandering route to the meat of the matter there, brother. No need to jump right in to the big questions—"

"You're being weird," he accuses, sitting down on the ground and leaning against Wingspark's side.

"I'm not being weird," I shuffle along the edge of the pond, turning over pebbles and looking for another skippable rock, "I'm making big decisions."

"Right, I forgot my little brother has all the big, important decisions to make now."

"Don't sound so…it's not deciding to train some cool new dragon or—it's _chief_." I stop and stare at him. "It's—you know how Dad feels about the chief, how he's always felt about the chief—"

"And now we know _why_ my dad feels that way."

"Chief doesn't mean I turn into Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III—" I stop short, tongue too dry in my mouth.

Maybe it's just me latching onto the idea that I might not be grey haired and pathetic as soon as I'm _crowned_, but well…well, maybe this isn't so unspeakably horrible. "Wait. Being chief doesn't mean I turn into that asshole, I could be chief without being an asshole it's not…it could happen."

"Oh really," Arvid laughs.

"I'm trying to be optimistic."

"You're an idiot."

"I never said I wasn't," I quip like I always do but something about Arvid's tone sits strangely in my chest. Either he's adopting my famously confusing deadpan, or he isn't joking.

"Well, I guess all you'd really have to do to be a better chief than the one we have now is not sleep with married women. And stay on the island instead of showboating around the archipelago at every opportunity."

"One out of two," I smile as this starts to sink in, the fact that chief doesn't necessarily mean _the_ chief. It's a title, not a pair of shoes—or in this case one ill-fitting, out of fashion shoe—to step into. "Hey, if I were chief, maybe I could cut a deal with Dad. The chief has all of those unused ships sitting in the harbor, maybe I could turn fishing over to you guys entirely, if the title means a chunk of the Haddock inheritance."

Arvid frowns, "we—Dad…" he falters and scowls at me, standing and pacing across the shore, "My dad and I don't need your charity."

I swallow, my heart throbbing in my chest.

"You…you keep calling him…you keep calling Dad _your_ dad, like he's—"

"Well, he's not your dad." Arvid crosses his arms, "he's just your step dad, or…or the loser that got screwed by the chief."

_I think Mom is the loser that got screwed by the chief_.

_Isn't Mom really the loser who got screwed by the chief?_

_I'm fucking evidence that Mom got screwed by the chief. _

_I'm evidence. _

_The chief screwed Mom. _

None of them are right. They're all something that I would have said last week, last month, last year, crass humor to cover just how uncomfortable this situation is. A week ago I would have said it and Arvid would have scowled and laughed and thumped me on the back like he was trying to break my ribs.

I would have made some joke about how he won't be able to bully me when I outgrow him, when I finally catch up. I'm never fucking catching up, it's never going to fucking happen. I look at Arvid and see my dad scowling at me through my mom's hard, blue eyes, and it strikes me that maybe someone is about to yell at me.

It's further from normal than I could have imagined.

There's never been anything Arvid and I couldn't share, anything we wouldn't talk about. I almost ask if he's had any hot dates lately, and if he dives in with his usual exhaustive detail, maybe I can pretend that something is still alright.

I could lighten the mood in a million ways but I don't.

"Is that what I am to you? Am I just…Mom's mistake?"

"You are Mom's mistake," Arvid spits, glaring at me for a moment before sighing, his eyes barely softening. "And…And maybe I'm not _adapting_ to this like you are, alright? You've always been weird, you must be so happy to finally know why you're so weird but…but I've spent my whole life best friends with the chief's son."

"I'm still just Eret." I almost expect some sort of grandiose impact. I want his eyes to open and for him to realize that I'm his brother and I've been his brother this whole time and I…I…

He stares at me.

"I don't know how I didn't see it. I just…I feel stupid."

"You aren't stupid."

He kicks a rock into the lake with a splash and Bang chirps, his thick belly dragging across the pebbles behind me.

"I should have seen it, Eret. You look like him and you talk like him and you…whenever we explore, you're always further and faster and higher and—and I'm not like that. I thought you got it from my Dad, ironically, because he always told us his stories about _everywhere_, but…but he landed and the chief didn't and you aren't going to either."

"You're upset because you think I'm going to leave?" I ask, looking towards the horizon and wondering just how easy running would be.

Surely the chief would come after me. Mom might let me go, she doesn't worry how she used to, and for all of Dad—Arvid's Dad's big talk, I can't help but doubt what he thinks of me. I can't help but feel like I got slipped into his nest somehow, a sneaky whispering death dropping its eggs into another dragon's clutch.

No one ever figured out how Night Furies mate. Maybe this is why.

Maybe all the dragons took care of the imposters.

"I'm not going to leave."

Arvid shrugs and sneers, turning back towards Wingspark and shaking his head. "Let's get home."

"Yeah."

And the imposter returns to the nest.

00000

"I just think, Eret," the chief glances at me, his eyes flicking almost immediately back to Mom's face . He's been staring at Mom all night, it's disgusting. "Maybe you should follow me around the island for a few days—"

"And just live the dream? I can't believe you'd make such an alluring offer," I lean my chin on my hands and dare him to laugh, glaring at the faltering line of his jaw.

"Eret," Mom thumps my shoulder and I shrug her hand off.

"And what would I learn? Following you around. How to run an island? Because I'm not imagining much diplomacy, I'm imagining you being super nice to everyone about everything and trying to impress me." I roll my eyes and the chief looks serious for a brief second before he glances at my mom again. "Look, I'm a teenager, she doesn't know how to talk to me either. What did you come here to say?"

"It can be like an apprenticeship," the chief starts over, pitching the offer to my Mom more than me. She looks away, drumming her fingers on the table and staring past the top of my head.

"I already have an apprenticeship with Gobber."

"Temporarily, if you don't like it," he frowns and leans his elbows onto the table, and I hate the way he looks there, like he thinks he belongs. Like that's not…Eret Sr.'s seat in Eret Sr.'s house and Thor's balls, I need to visit the fishing boat tomorrow when Arvid isn't around and get a clear title. He said it was Dad but I can't—I need him to say it again.

If he's really Dad he'll say it again.

"And all I have to do is follow you around?"

"And help with dragons and buildings and people and…I think you might like it. It's logistics, it's—"

"Stop selling him on it," Mom snaps, her grip tightening around the edge of the table as she glances back at the door. The chief looks at her, and it strikes me for the first time that they really are the same age. They grew up together, I know, I've heard about the chief's stringier younger years from a still bitter Snotlout. Apparently Snotlout had the whole village in the palm of his hand until the chief trained Toothless and everything changed.

Mom always scoffs at that story, cutting it off before Snotlout can embarrass himself.

"Logistics, huh?"

"You know, it's…I mean, think about the forge, Gobber tells you to have two projects done by the end of the day, you have to think about what to do first, you have to think about what's going to be on the fire, what's going to be on the anvil. It's like that, but on an island-wide scale, it's management, it's—"

"And what makes you think I'd be good at this?" I sit up straight, wishing I had the comforting weight of my axe against my back. "You've never talked to me…it's like you're basing this all on the fact that I _unfortunately_ inherited your looks." I let it sink in, I wait for him to squirm, to show the arrogance I've always heard about.

He shrugs.

"Either that or you've been stalking me from afar, and that's really creepy."

"I've seen you with Bang—"

"At least you got his name right this time."

"I'm sorry about that, I didn't know him as Bang—"

"Oh, so now you don't just know _me_, you know my dragon too?" I stand halfway, hands clenching into tight fists against the table, and Mom's hand clenches on my shoulder.

"Eret."

It hits me that the only way I know she's talking to me and not the man I really wish was my dad is her tone, the disappointment in her voice. She always expects better of me, I'm never enough, I'm…I refuse to be like the chief. That decision stands and I sit back down, folding my hands together and shaking my head.

"I'm nothing like you." I have to say it.

The chief's hand slides over his mouth and he nods slowly.

"I've talked to Gobber. I've talked to Fishlegs, I've talked to everyone who's ever taught you at the academy. Gustav said a lot of great things, I think you have a job with him at the dragon barn if you hate this. I just…I just really think you should give it a try."

"Stop selling me on it."

Mom snorts, still pointedly staring at the door, and I wonder _again_ just how this situation exists. I feel…I feel impossible. It's so obvious, no one is lying to me, I'm the chief's bastard and I look like it, but my _parents_ can't even look at each other. My mom yells or ignores him and he just…

Oh fuck, he's staring at her again.

I clear my throat and he looks back at me.

"Would it be a permanent thing, if I like it? Or would I keep working at the forge?"

"Is that a yes?" He looks at Mom for an answer and I sigh loudly until his attention is back on me. It's like he's obsessed with her or something, maybe he was stalking her and saw me accidentally. "I mean, that could be up to us—you! That could be something you decide later, I definitely have enough to keep you busy all the time, but if you wanted time at the forge, I understand that—"

"Maybe…maybe if I do like it, Smitelout could have the apprenticeship back." I shrug, "it could be my first logistical decision."

"Yeah, that's—that's good, you—I'm sure Gobber would be happy to have her back." The chief nods too vigorously, "and we have a few itching to take over her job at the academy, she's not the first choice with the little kids anyway, yes. Good. You're—I knew you'd be good at this, I just—"

"He hasn't even started yet," Mom turns to the chief, and it's an odd, stiff little dance, the way she makes eye contact with the chief and glances away, staring obviously above his head with her jaw set like she's going to punch him. I wish she would. That's a fight I'd pay to see.

Maybe that's how I exist. She was beating him up and—

Nope. Not going there. I don't want to go there.

"He hasn't started yet," she repeats, her hands pressing flat against the table like if she picks them up, she'll hit him. "Can you stop _inflating _him? Let him prove himself first."

"I just—" the chief shakes his head and runs his hand through that gray hair, and it's my own frustration painted on his face. Bang senses my discomfort and presses his claw up against my tapping heel and I'm glad Mom made Toothless wait outside. I don't know if I could take watching the chief's dragon do the same thing. "Yeah. Sorry. Ok. I'm deferring, I'm not going to…your rules."

Mom nods.

"So tomorrow morning?" The chief drags his eyes back to me, "let's meet at the great hall a little after sunrise for breakfast and talk about the day."

I look at Mom, because I've always eaten breakfast here, and she pats my shoulder like she understands. I haven't seen Arvid at all today and breakfast tomorrow was sort of a far off hope.

Then again, bonding over the chief being his obnoxious self might be a good way to come home.

"Sure. I'll meet you down there. I'm bringing Bang." I don't ask, I announce, and it helps me feel like I have some sort of power in this situation.

"Of course. Toothless will love that."

He tries to say goodbye to Mom but she freezes him out, staring straight ahead until he shuts the door behind him.


	8. Brother Where Art Thou

Mom wakes me in the morning more gently than she used to and I never imagined I'd be pining for the old days of her throwing clean laundry at my head and barking about breakfast. Rolf's old boots are still depressingly too big and I tug on an extra pair of socks before slumping into the hallway. Arvid's bed on the opposite side of the room is empty, the covers in a tangled mess and I wonder if he even came home last night.

I almost run into him in the hallway, combing his fingers through salt-crusted hair and he pauses.

"I heard you're going around with the chief today."

"Where'd you hear that? From the lucky lady that kept you out so late?" I laugh and he scowls at me, crossing his arms.

"I was out on the boat with my dad."

"Oh."

"I kept falling asleep though, so he sent me home."

"You…I mean, if you wanted, you could come to breakfast with me and the chief. I need someone to stop me from strangling him."

"I don't think I'd be any help with that," Arvid frowns, "if he wants you to be chief, why don't you just kill him now?"

"I think he needs to sign something first to make me his official heir." I laugh, "but I don't know, I'm sixteen. Maybe I don't want all the chiefly duties at once."

"I can't believe he's thinking about making you chief." He shakes his head, and I can't help but be jealous of his fish smelling clothes. I never got to go out early with Dad.

Back when he was my dad.

"I can't believe you're out on the boat before sunrise."

"It's called growing up, Eret." He spits at me, shouldering past me towards the bedroom. "I'm thinking about going up north and getting my tattoos." He points to his chin and I think of my own unshaven red stubble, chewing on my lower lip and laughing nervously.

"Mom would never let you."

"I don't care what she thinks. My dad thinks it's a good idea."

"It'll still never get past Mom," and it won't. If I know anything with any sort of certainty it's that Mom will stab that horrible idea in the foot.

"Give the chief Hel, alright? And remember all of it, I want to hear about it later."

"But of course."

I fly down to the hall, avoiding the stares of the village that I'm still not ready for and land right out front, patting Bang and walking inside. The chief is sitting at the opposite end of the building, staring at the door like he's forgotten or something. He half stands and waves me over and it's so tempting to just leave, to just turn around and leave and go back to the forge.

But that's what the chief would do, isn't it?

I stalk across the room and sit down across the table from him grabbing a chicken leg from the center of the table.

"Good morning."

I grunt.

"How are you?"

I grunt again and wipe my mouth on my sleeve, as rude as I can manage.

"Oh, you're hungry. Apparently."

"I'm always hungry," I set the first bone aside and pull the whole platter towards me, glaring at the gaping couple to our right. "Actually I just might eat all of this."

"Wow," the chief looks around awkwardly and I take another bite, stripping a chicken wing in a single mouthful and swallowing it back. It's so much better than fish for breakfast, not that I'd ever say anything to Mom.

The chief owns all the chickens anyway.

The thought should make me stop, it should make me stop eating the chief's food.

But then again, if I eat enough, I could eat all of the chief's food.

I dig into a thigh and elbow my growing pile of bones out of my way.

"You definitely didn't get that from me."

"No kidding," I swallow hard and look him up and down. "Not much eating going on over there."

"Well, looking at you I don't know if it would have made much of a difference."

"Oh, so we're doing size jokes? That's where this is going?" I wave a chicken bone at his face like it's menacing before scraping the last piece of meat off of it with my teeth and reaching for another wing. "Because I don't think you could even lift my arsenal of size jokes with your puny ass arms."

The chief laughs, a nasal laugh that I recognize all too well, my own laugh echoing off of canyon walls.

"You're funny."

"I'm not trying to be funny."

"Ah, then you've transcended my wall of banal humor." The chief picks at a roll, his fingers long and covered in burn scars. Forge fingers.

"So what's on the agenda for today?" I change the subject, staring down at my own hands, the palms still pink and shiny from their most recent burn.

"I'm glad you asked," he pulls a pad out of his pocket, a charcoal stick out of a special slot in the sleeve of his armor and starts reading a list of runes in neat handwriting. It's strange, the chief doesn't seem like someone who would have neat handwriting but I like it, because my own is a scattered mess. I've always been better off drawing to communicate something, my runes look like something a toddler drew in the dirt. "I've got a naming ceremony for the new Sigurdarson baby, I've got a catastrophe in wood storage, apparently half of it is in the ocean and the building is falling down. I have about fifteen terrors to send to neighboring tribes, and then there's a fleet of war ships I need to get repaired."

"Busy day."

"Eh, it's pretty typical. Maybe a bit on the busy side."

"Should we get started?" I finish another wing and push the significantly dented platter away from me and looking around.

Half the people in the hall are staring, hands cupped over their mouths as they whisper back and forth. Like we're putting on a fucking play.

"I'm…the village has heard."

"I'm pretty sure the village heard us yelling." I shake my head and lean my elbows on the table, "The village always knew. I don't know how I didn't figure it out, it's…it's obvious."

"It's…I wanted to tell you." The chief leans towards me, like there's any sort of privacy here, "I wanted to tell you when you were younger, I tried, I—"

"I came to learn to be chief, not to have some heart to heart with you." I stand away from the table and shake my head, "let's get going."

00000

It's not as bad as I want it to be. Nothing goes horribly wrong. The chief never stops looking at me like I'm back from the dead, but he stops acting like everything I do is fantastic or completely novel. It's fun work, it's fun interacting with the village more completely than I ever have. It's fun having people look me in the eye, even if they immediately turn to whisper to their friends.

Vikings have never been quiet before, I try to focus on the fact that somehow my presence is powerful enough to shut them up.

"…and that's why the law is based on dragon per doorway, rather than dragon per person in a house or something. It's all about evacuation time in case of a fire."

"Huh," I kick a rock ahead of us and the chief smacks it with the side of his metal foot. I try not to stare. "It makes sense, it's just…it's just funny how people are putting in more doorways to get more dragons, that must make it horrible to heat a house in the winter."

"That's why I'm starting to encourage people building second or third stories onto their houses, it makes the laws a mess, but they can call it a roost and keep as many dragons as they want up there, when it's actually a livable loft."

The chief isn't so bad when he's just talking about the village. Not my place in it, not me in general. He's sort of funny, sort of thoughtful, smart in a too familiar way I'm not used to listening to, and there's something comforting about our twin pace through the village. In another world, where I'm not his messed up little mistake, maybe I could like him.

If I didn't know about his reputation, maybe I could forgive him.

"That makes sense."

"Try explaining that to the tribe in general," he shrugs skinny shoulders and strokes the Night Fury's head. I want to ask him why we aren't flying, his limp has gotten worse as the day goes on and I know he usually flies around the village.

It's probably so that we can talk without shouting.

I don't want to talk to him.

"You do know I'm part of that tribe, right?" I shake my head and kick another rock, snorting as Bang nudges the flat of his wide nose against my hand. "I'm not some…ally in the denial of your Viking-ness. I'm full Viking. All Viking, all the time."

"Is that your mother's old axe?" He gestures to the weapon across my back and I shrug.

"One of them. She said it was her favorite."

"I made it," he nods slowly. "It's a little small for you now, but…but it's a good weapon."

The cool metal of the blade feels like it's burning my shoulder, suddenly imbued with the chief's touch all over it. I try and rationalize the face that I've touched most weapons in the village dozens of times, between sharpening and repairs, and that doesn't change them. Not really. And 20 years of mom's meticulous handling must have diluted the chief's influence on my best weapon to almost nothing, right?

"I'm planning to lengthen the handle soon. And I was going to weight the blade a bit more, I was thinking sort of a bronze relief in the center, a couple of big, heavy Thunderdrums bolted on there."

"If you can get the metals to bond well enough, yeah." He glances at me, "That would suit you. I mean, it already suits you, it's your mother's axe and the fact that she gave it to you and…and taught you to use it, and…"

"Are you going anywhere with this?" I cross my arms and chew on the inside of my cheek. I could take his head off, I could take his head off before the Night Fury had time to blast me, probably. Of course Toothless would be on me before his head hit the ground, but…but Arvid would be proud. Arvid would think it was awesome.

"Probably not." He glances at me, his eyes lingering strangely on my profile for a moment. "You look like your mother, you know."

"So I've heard." The truth spills out in a burst before I can stop it, scalding and accidental. "That was everyone's favorite lie. Arvid is running around, looking like a clone of our—his dad, and I was jealous and everyone just told me I looked like Mom. Like it was some sort of consolation prize, like—and it was a lie, obviously, it was just supposed to keep me off of the scent."

"No, you really do look like her." He's quiet enough that I find myself drifting closer to him, a few steps between us on the road. "It's a—it's more obvious in profile. Your nose looks like hers from the side."

"Oh."

And there's a million things I want to ask him. How does he know so much about my mom's nose? How does he know my Mom? Were they just childhood playmates? How did that lead to _me_? How the Hel did anything lead to me?

A small ginger dart shoots out of a building on our right and attaches itself to the chief's leg with a shout of 'daddy!'

"Hey bud," The chief laughs, hopping on one foot for a moment and catching his balance with a hand on the boy's head. Little Stoick is hiding halfway behind his father's leg and staring up at me with one huge, brown eye. "Say hi, this is Eret."

The chief gestures towards me and the boy hugs his leg more tightly. The chief smiles at me next, like it's up to me to charm the kid.

"Um, I'm not really a _kid_ person…"

"Just say hi," he laughs and I raise my arm in an awkward wave, taking half a step backwards.

"Hi, Stoick."

"Hey," the kid mutters into his dad's leg, peeking a little further out at me. He doesn't have the chief's freckles, Aurelia's freckles, _my _freckles, and from the way he's hiding from me when my axe isn't even out, I wonder if it's just because he doesn't go outside.

"Don't be shy, kiddo," The chief musses the kid's head. "It's just Eret, remember what I told you about Eret?"

"He's my big brother."

The words ring in my head, impossible and terrifying and my eyes widen. Big brother.

"I don't know about that…"

"So you aren't my big brother?" Stoick takes a tiny step sideways, leaning his head against his dad's hip and narrowing his eyes at me.

"Uhhh…technically?" I laugh and look around, and of course there are people watching, a dozen peppered around the square. I wonder if I'm ever going to have privacy again, if I'll ever go back to the pleasant feeling of being ignored that I used to so stupidly complain about. "I don't—I'm not—I've got to go, if we're done for today."

I take another step backwards and wave my arms, like I can banish the rest of the day's tasks. "I've got to go talk to my dad about something, umm, he's—are we done today?"

"If you need to talk to your _dad_ about something," the chief starts, wrapping his hand around little Stoick's shoulder, unbelievably tiny, little Stoick, and it hits me that I must have looked about like that next to Arvid when we were kids. It must have been so obvious, a runty little twit in a family of model Vikings. "You know you can—"

"I don't know you," I bark, flinching when one of the random onlookers gasps. "I really don't know you, I don't have anything to talk to you about, I want to talk to my actual dad."

"Oh well," the chief looks down and I can tell that he's hurt, badly trying to pretend he's not. He's a horrible actor, he wears all of his emotions like a mask, and it makes me wonder if that's what Mom means when she calls me a horrible actor. "I guess we can finish the rest of this up tomorrow, um but…but is everything ok?"

"No, everything isn't ok," I glance at the kid, again cowering behind the chief, and try to ignore him. "My dad isn't my dad, my brother isn't my brother and I'm not their family. I'll see you tomorrow, chief. I'll be eating breakfast at home."

I swing onto Bang without another word and take off, ignoring the chatter on the ground behind me, ignoring the crowd coming forward. I can't help but wonder what they're saying, what they think of me. It was easier when they didn't think of me at all, when I was one of those rowdy Hofferson boys, but now I'm a potential heir and I'm running away and…and…

I urge Bang higher, above the clouds, and start to scan the horizon for Dad's—Arvid's Dad's—my fucking namesake's ships, hoping that he stuck close today, that the ash from the forest fire has dissipated enough for the fish to come back. Because it's so much easier for the wild parts of the island to go back to normal, the ocean will be fine within a week while everything on the shore will be demolished forever.

Even the trees will grow back before things return to normal. Nothing is ever going to be normal again. I remember being so excited about meeting the chief, about the prospect of a little extra silver, and it makes me nauseous. He was bribing me before I even knew, wasn't he? It was because I was his son. He probably didn't like my ideas at all, he just wanted to endear me to him before…

I direct Bang down over the ocean so that the frigid waves will splash my face and wake me up.

I can see Outcast Island on the horizon, a little rocky blip, and I think about running. I could trade a dagger for some gold and head East, I could head to the mainland. I could go anywhere.

I could go and meet everyone who saw the chief running twenty years ago, they could see him in my face, tell me that I remind them of another traveler with a dragon. I lean over Bang's side and retch into the ocean, the chief's chickens burning my throat.

I finally find Dad's ship, lonely on calm seas, Skullcrusher chasing fish with deadly focus off of the bow, and land on it without asking first, only questioning it after my feet are on the deck. Dad looks over at me and smiles, and I run to the railing and puke again, dry heaving into the foam. Bang nuzzles my calf, crooning worriedly in the back of his throat.

"Eret, are you ok?" Dad thumps my shoulder and I stand up, wiping my mouth on my sleeve.

"I was with the chief today, and we were doing all of these little tasks and—and for a while, I could almost forget how fucked up everything is. And we were talking about laws and why they're there, and little tiny Stoick runs out of nowhere and he's like hiding from me, like I'm so scary," I gesture to myself, and Dad must see how not scary I am. How skinny and unintimidating and shamelessly _scared_, I am. "And then apparently, apparently the chief told the kid that I'm his _big brother_, like I'm ready for that sort of responsibility, like I already agreed to be a part of the chief's big fucking happy family."

Dad nods, like he's still listening, and that's why he's a better dad than the chief ever could be. He listens to me even when I'm prattling on about nothing, and the chief can barely show up when I fuck up like him.

"And then this kid, and this kid is eight or something and he's barely eh high," I hold my hand at my hip, and I know I'm exaggerating, but not by much and I think I might have to puke again. "And he starts asking if I am his brother, and I didn't know that kids that little could even talk, you know? It's like a tiny little troll or I don't even fucking know, and I don't know how to be a big brother or a chief and—and Arvid keeps on calling you _his_ dad, like we don't have the same dad, and we don't but…but…But you used to be my dad."

"I'm still your dad. Or…you're still my son, I thought we talked about this." He smiles, a sad sort of smile I've never seen before. "See, I'm having to remind you. That's some of my comparatively dumb influence in you."

"You aren't dumb. You're the smartest." I nod emphatically, leaning back on the railing and trying to ignore the way that my lower back is trembling against the wood.

"Son of Eret." He rests his hand on my shoulder and shakes me. Not hard, but hard enough to remind me that it's easy for him, that he can move me like that without even trying. "I knew when I named you, you know. I knew then and it was still true."

"Gods, it was that obvious?" I laugh even though it's not funny, leaning my head backwards over the ocean and contemplating tipping backwards. Bang would save me. Bang would dive in before I hit the water, but there would be something delightfully dramatic about the fall.

I remember thinking up all these plans to get noticed, to make the village see me as someone important despite my name, despite my family. It turned out all I needed was a good old fashioned dose of nepotism.

"You were born with this shock of bright red hair, and at first I was just hoping, so desperately hoping that it was blood or it'd fall out and grow back blonde or black or _something_. But we sort of knew, it was—it still is the exact same color as your grandfather's. Your actual grandfather."

"The chief's dad?" I nod slowly. "Stoick the Vast."

We've all heard the tales and wondered if they were embellished or not. It's hard to imagine the man any smaller than the statue along the back cliff, it's impossible to think that once upon a time he was just a man, a living, breathing man that could be taken out by a dragon, even a Night Fury. It strikes me that I'm related to him, a quarter of my blood is his and that's more inspiring than sharing half my blood with the chief.

"Stoick the Vast." Dad nods and smiles to himself, "I don't think we've ever told you this, but Skullcrusher used to be his dragon."

"Really?" I frown. "I…has anyone ever told you how messed up this whole situation is? How the Hel did you end up with my actual grandfather's dragon?"

"The chief asked me to look after him, once upon a time." Dad shrugs, "I want to answer your questions, Eret. I never—I never liked how much we lied to you. Now, don't take this out on your mother, she had her reasons and they…I understand them even if I didn't always agree. But I'll answer your questions."

And I have questions. I have questions about Mom and the chief and me, and him and where he fits in, where I fit in. Nothing makes sense and there's a million questions I could ask but I'm scared of the answers. What if it's simple, and Mom and the chief got caught up in some feeling and I happened. What if it's horrible and she was _coerced_.

The second seems more likely and the thought makes me sick. I'll ask tomorrow, when I feel more stable.

I glance at him, at all of those things I'm not, at the understanding I don't have, the stubbornness covering up any trace of what he managed to teach me. My eyes catch on his hands, still bare, the white line of his wedding ring almost entirely faded.

"You still aren't wearing your ring?"

"The ash," he waves towards the ocean, "it made the water sticky, somehow, I'm just…waiting for the sea to clear."

"I was…I was just thinking about that earlier. The sea is going to be fine, the trees are going to grow back before I figure out this family bullshit."

"Son," he wraps his arm around my shoulders and it's not so cold anymore. "The sea will swallow Berk whole before anything in this family makes sense."

"Thank Thor for tidal class," I scratch Bang's concerned muzzle and stare out at the greyish tinged sea foam, still tarnished by ash.


End file.
